Effects on Software Quality and Collaboration with Behavior-Driven Development

Abstract: The field of software engineering consists of complex processes to deliver valuableand useful software to end users. Requirements discovery and software testing hasevolved significantly over the last decades with an increased focus on agility anddelivering customer value. Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), an extension ofTest-Driven Development, is a test-first requirements collection and acceptance test-ing framework. Despite a high practitioner interest within the industry, there arecurrently only a limited number of studies within academia available on the feasibilityof BDD. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the impact of BDD on software qualityand stakeholder collaboration. This is done by studying a quality assurance teamconsisting of management and development resources as BDD activities are practicedin the development of a new application. Semi-structured interviews are then heldwith participants to identify perceived and expected benefits as well as identifiedchallenges throughout the process. Responses are finally collected and coded into athematic map from which conclusions are drawn and discussed. As we have found in our study, many practical and organizational aspects areraised when BDD is implemented. Benefits include increased team collaboration,team alignment, and software quality. Challenges include management and teammotivation issues, increased workload, loss of productivity, BDD benefit visibilityissues, and the need for experience to be able to implement BDD successfully.