CTAL-TTA practice question 8 of 25

The following user story has been written: As a paying hotel guest I want to see the charges that have been added to my bill So that I can monitor my…

The following user story has been written: As a paying hotel guest I want to see the charges that have been added to my bill So that I can monitor my expenditure and know In advance how much I will have to pay when I check out The notes that have been added to It mention that It must be possible for the guest to get a printout of the bill, see It In a variety of currencies and set a flag in the hotel's billing system against any Item that they wish to challenge. The following acceptance criteria have been defined: 1. The user shall be able to choose from the most commonly-used currencies. 2. The application must be accessible on most mobile platforms as well as on the hotel room's smart TV. 3. The hotel manager must be notified whenever a bill item is flagged by a hotel guest. 4. End-to-end response time for any individual request submitted by a user must not exceed 7 seconds. Applying the INVEST technique to this user story, including its acceptance criteria, which of the following statements is correct? SELECT ONE OPTION

Answer options

A: The Testable and Negotiable criteria of INVEST have not been satisfied

B: The Testable and Small criteria of INVEST have not been satisfied Correct answer

C: The INVEST criteria have all been satisfied by this epic

D: The Negotiable and Small criteria of INVEST have not been satisfied

Correct Answer:

B. The Testable and Small criteria of INVEST have not been satisfied

Explanation

The INVEST acronym (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable) is used to evaluate the quality of user stories. This story fails the "Testable" criterion because acceptance criteria 1 and 2 use ambiguous, subjective terms like "most commonly-used currencies" and "most mobile platforms," which cannot be objectively verified or automated. Additionally, it fails the "Small" criterion because the scope encompasses viewing bills, printing, currency conversion, flagging items, manager notifications, and cross-platform compatibility. This massive amount of functionality makes it an epic rather than a small, sprint-sized story that can be completed in a single iteration.

Why Incorrect

A: The story is still Negotiable as details can be discussed and refined with the product owner; however, it fails the Small criterion. C: The criteria are not all satisfied, as the story is too large (not Small) and contains ambiguous, untestable acceptance criteria. D: The story remains Negotiable, but it fails the Testable criterion due to ambiguous language in the acceptance criteria.

References

1. ISTQB Foundation Level Agile Tester Extension Syllabus v1.0, Section 2.1.2 (User Stories and INVEST criteria).

2. Wake, B. (2003). "INVEST in Good Stories, and SMART Tasks." Agile Alliance.

3. Cohn, M. (2004). User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley Professional, Chapter 2 (Writing Good User Stories).

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