Behavior-driven development

Behavior-driven development (BDD) is an agile software development method centered around collaboration between business and IT professionals that have a stake in finding a solution for a complex problem. The core objective is to achieve a shared understanding of the problem. BDD involves use of a domain-specific language (DSL) using natural-language constructs (e.g., English-like sentences) that can express the behavior and the expected outcomes. BDD encourages collaboration among developers, quality assurance experts, and customer representatives in a software project. It encourages teams to use conversation and concrete examples to formalize a shared understanding of how the application should behave. BDD is considered an effective practice especially when the problem space is complex. A common misconception regarding BDD is that it supposedly is a refinement of test-driven development (TDD). While it was originally derived from TDD practices, the sole purpose of BDD is to gain a shared understanding of the problem space and find a way to write this down in a Business Language, using Real data, whilst being Intention revealing, Essential and Focused (BRIEF). BDD combines the techniques of TDD with ideas from domain-driven design and object-oriented analysis and design to provide software development and management teams with shared tools and a shared process to collaborate on software development. At a high level, BDD is an idea about how software development should be managed by both business interests and technical insight. Its practice involves use of specialized tools. Some tools specifically for BDD can be used for TDD. The tools automate the ubiquitous language.