Assessment and validation of the business solution are important and frequent activities of product owners (POs), business analysts (BAs) and testers. Part of their responsibilities is to define acceptance criteria for the requirements, regardless of the type of development lifecycle – Agile or traditional. Acceptance criteria are defined by decomposing the requirements into a more atomic and testable form. Test cases are then designed to verify the solution against the criteria. Designing acceptance tests from acceptance criteria should be a highly collaborative activity, involving business analysts and testers, to ensure high business value of the acceptance testing phase, and mitigating the risks related to product release.

Supporting this collaborative work, and thereby avoiding the silo effect between product owners / business analysts and testers, is the key objective of the syllabus of ISTQB® Certified Tester - Acceptance Testing.

How do I obtain this certification?

You can prepare for the exam by attending an accredited training course for ISTQB® Certified Tester - Acceptance Testing; participants will have relevant content and topics clearly explained and taught to them.

The syllabus includes topics relevant to anyone involved in acceptance testing:

• Develop and review acceptance criteria for requirements and/or user stories in a collaborative way.
• Apply Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) and Behavior Driven Development (BDD) techniques for a given scenario.
• Apply the Gherkin language for designing acceptance tests for a given scenario.
• Organize exploratory testing and beta testing session.
• Review business process/rule models specified in BPMN and DMN.
• Use business process/rule models specified in BPMN and DMN to create acceptance tests.
• Consider usability/user experience, performance efficiency and security in planning and performing acceptance testing.
• Collaborate efficiently with relevant stakeholders in acceptance testing activities including defect reporting and analysis and test status reporting.
• Select relevant tools for acceptance testing activities.

The exam is available as remote exam and in Pearson Vue test centers for anyone wishing to self-study.

What are the entry requirements?

In order to take the ISTQB® Certified Tester - Acceptance Testing exam, you will need the ISTQB® Certified Tester − Foundation Level certificate.

How does this certification benefit me?

As this qualification covers three roles, business analysts, product owners, and testers, the business skills targeted are expressed by role.

**For business analysts and product owners: **

• Contribute to an organization’s acceptance testing activities by participating in the acceptance test design phase and supporting the alignment of the product with the business requirements.
• Contribute to the organization of acceptance testing activities, including the process, artifacts, communication, reporting, monitoring, and management of such activities, and collaborate with testers and other relevant stakeholders in this process.
• Contribute to the quality of the acceptance testing process, including validation and verification of produced artifacts.

**For testers: **

• Contribute to the definition of acceptance criteria during the requirements definition phase.
• Collaborate efficiently with business analysts and other stakeholders during all acceptance testing activities.
• Understand the business objectives, communicate with business units, and share common objectives for acceptance testing.

Who is this certification for?

This acceptance testing qualification is aimed at anyone involved in software acceptance testing activities. This includes people in roles such as:

• product owners
• business analysts
• testers
• test analysts
• test engineers
• test consultants
• test managers
• user acceptance testers
• software developers.

The focus of the syllabus is on the concepts, methods and practices of collaboration between product owners / business analysts and testers in acceptance testing. Regarding the different forms of acceptance testing defined in the ISTQB® Certified Tester Syllabus – Acceptance Testing Version 2019, this syllabus covers user acceptance testing (UAT), contractual and regulatory acceptance testing as well as alpha and beta testing. This syllabus voluntarily does not address the operational acceptance testing (OAT) because this is generally performed by teams that will operate the system rather than by testers and business analysts.

What other certifications can you recommend?

Other ISTQB® certifications that may be of interest:

• ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level – Agile Tester
• ISTQB® Certified Tester – Model Based Tester
• ISTQB® Certified Tester Advanced Level – Test Manager
• ISTQB® Certified Tester Advanced Level – Technical Test Analyst
• ISTQB® Certified Tester – Test Automation Engineer
• ISTQB® Certified Tester – Security Tester
• A4Q IQBBA Certified Agile Business Analysis (CABA)