5.2How a Three Amigos Session Works

Format

• Duration: 15-20 minutes per story
• When: Before development starts (during sprint planning or backlog refinement)
• Attendees: One developer, one QA engineer, the product owner (or a proxy)
• Output: Refined acceptance criteria that all three agree are specific and testable

Flow

1. PO describes the story and acceptance criteria (2-3 minutes)

   • What is the user trying to do?
   • Why is it valuable?
   • What are the acceptance criteria?

2. Developer asks technical clarification questions (3-5 minutes)

   • How should the API handle concurrent requests?
   • What database changes are needed?
   • Are there performance constraints?
   • What happens during the migration window?

3. QA asks "what if" questions (5-7 minutes)

   • What if the input is empty?
   • What if the network is slow?
   • What if the user has no permissions?
   • What if this is used on a mobile device?
   • What happens with very large data sets?
   • What about accessibility?

4. Group refines acceptance criteria (3-5 minutes)

   • Rewrite vague criteria to be specific and testable
   • Add missing criteria that the discussion revealed
   • Agree on what "done" means for this story

5. QA leaves with enough information to write test cases before development starts