How Agile Teams Use Behavior-Driven Development to Build Better Software

Reviewed by Paul Moore, CSAT™

Behavior-driven development, or BDD, is a collaborative approach to software development that helps teams focus on the behaviors users care about. At its core, BDD is about building the right product and building it right.

If you work in an agile team, chances are you've seen requirements get lost in translation. A user story might sound clear at first, but by the time it's built, tested, and reviewed, people start asking, "Is this really what we meant?" BDD exists to prevent that. It brings the team and stakeholders together around a shared understanding, using real examples of how the software should behave.

BDD naturally complements agile working methods. Agile approaches place a high value on collaboration, customer feedback, and working software. BDD helps make those values practical by translating team discussions into clear, testable expectations. With this approach to development, you can support agile teams and improve communication, alignment, and product quality.

What is behavior-driven development and how does it support agile?

BDD evolved as an extension of test-driven development (TDD), with a greater focus on collaboration and shared understanding of user-facing behavior. Where TDD focuses on writing tests before code, BDD takes a step back and focuses on behavior before tests. BDD starts with a question: How should the software behave from the user's point of view?

BDD encourages teams to talk through those behaviors before writing code. These conversations should include product owners, developers, and testers—people who bring different perspectives to the table. Together, they explore real examples of how a feature should work, often using a structured format called Given/When/Then.

The Given/When/Then format is a simple way to describe behavior:

• Given a certain context
  
  
• When a user takes an action
  
  
• Then a specific outcome should happen
  
  

For example: 

Given a user is logged in, when they click "Checkout," then they should see the payment screen.

That example might look like a test, and it can be translated into an automated test, but first and foremost, it's a way of checking: are we all talking about the same thing?

Behavior-driven development supports agility by making collaboration easier and more meaningful. It gives teams a shared language for talking about requirements. It keeps the focus on the user and what the business actually needs. And it ties those needs directly to working software. BDD also shortens the feedback cycle by clearing up misunderstandings before any code is even written. The Developers start with a shared goal in mind and spend less time in the typical debug-fix cycle.

Why agile teams benefit from behavior-driven development

Agile teams often work in fast-moving environments. There's not always time to write long requirement documents or wait until the end of a sprint to validate a feature. BDD helps teams shorten that feedback loop.

By discussing behavior early, teams reduce requirement ambiguity so that everyone gets on the same page before coding begins. That means fewer surprises during testing and fewer missed expectations from stakeholders.

Behavior-driven development also strengthens collaboration. Instead of throwing requirements over the wall from product to development to QA, BDD invites everyone to contribute from the start. It turns "What are we building?" into a shared conversation with clear direction, rather than relying on interpretation.

BDD supports incremental delivery by helping you verify that each new feature or change behaves as expected. This greatly reduces the frenzy of activity at the end of the sprint which some teams struggle with, trying to close at stories that seem finished but lack clear acceptance criteria. Teams that invest in automating their BDD tests are able to build up a suite of regression tests that confirm the integrated system behaves as expected. This is a superset of the team’s TDD tests that tend to focus more on isolated units of behavior.

Aligning user stories with BDD scenarios

User stories describe what a user needs and why they need it. But when user stories are too high-level to guide development on their own, BDD scenarios can help break down a story into specific behaviors.

Let's look at an example. Suppose you have a user story:
As a customer, I want to add items to my cart so I can buy them later.

On its own, that story gives us direction. But what does "add items" actually involve? During a refinement session, the team might come up with scenarios like these:

• Given a customer is viewing a product,
  When they click "Add to Cart,"
  Then the item appears in their shopping cart.
  
  
• Given a customer has added an item to their cart,
  When they add the same item again,
  Then the quantity in the cart increases.
  
  

These examples take a fuzzy story and turn it into concrete, testable behaviors. Now the team has something to build, test, and demo, and they all understand what "done" looks like.

BDD scenarios also help with sprint planning. They can act as acceptance criteria, guiding development and testing. However, unlike traditional acceptance criteria, BDD scenarios are typically more detailed, written to be both executable and readable—so they must remain maintainable and focused.

If your team uses automated testing, many of these scenarios can be turned into automated checks, making regression testing easier as the product grows. Regression testing helps confirm that new changes haven't broken existing features, and automating those checks allows teams to catch issues early without having to manually retest everything each time.

However, not all BDD scenarios should be automated. Automation adds value, but the primary purpose of BDD is the conversation that creates shared understanding. Automating everything can lead to over-engineered or brittle test suites if not handled carefully. 

When your team is ready to automate their BDD tests they will find strong support for most platforms and languages. The Given/When/Then structure you’ve seen is implemented in a computer language called Gherkin. The Gherkin language allows teams to express the system behaviors in natural language as seen above. The Developers then create additional code that causes each BDD test to exercise their system.

How to start using BDD in your agile team

The first step in BDD is to initiate behavior-focused conversations within your team. During refinement or sprint planning sessions, instead of jumping straight into tasks or technical details, pause to ask: "What's the desired behavior here?" Talk through real-world examples. Use the Given/When/Then format if it helps, but don't worry about making it perfect.

Practice writing these examples together. A whiteboard or a shared document works fine. Some teams use collaboration tools or scenario management software, but those can come later. Initially, the most valuable practice is discussing behaviors as a group.

Start small. Pick one story in your next sprint. Write a few scenarios together and try turning them into acceptance criteria. Then see how those examples guide your development and testing. As you get more comfortable, you might explore ways to automate some of those scenarios so they can be checked regularly as the product evolves. Automation helps teams build confidence in their code by making it easier to catch regressions early and keep existing functionality intact. But remember: the conversation comes first. The real power of BDD is in how it brings clarity to the team's thinking.

BDD also supports continuous learning. You may notice that better questions come up earlier. You could catch edge cases before they become bugs. And you should deliver features that actually meet user needs because you started by defining those needs together. The most successful agile teams use BDD not as a checklist, but as a mindset. It's a way to stay curious, stay collaborative, and stay focused on delivering value. 

If you're ready to build your skills and bring BDD into your everyday work, check out the Scrum Alliance course Behavior-Driven Development for Agile Teams. You'll get hands-on practice writing clear scenarios from real team discussions, running discovery workshops, and applying behavior-first thinking with your team. 

You'll leave with practical skills you can use right away to help your team turn conversations into clear approaches on delivering value to your stakeholders.

Leverage behavior-driven development

Want to turn user stories into working software your whole team understands? Explore Behavior-Driven Development for Agile Teams, a hands-on microcredential that helps you boost collaboration, cut rework, and build what really matters. 

Explore BDD for Agile Teams