Conversation to Code: Automated Tests from Collaborative Requirements Gathering

Session Category Development & Performance Audience All Attendees

Ever feel like requirements gathering produces documents nobody reads, leaving developers guessing what stakeholders actually want? Or ship a feature only to hear "that's not what I meant"? 

There's a better approach: collaborative workshops where stakeholders, developers, and testers work through concrete examples together—defining requirements in plain language that become your automated tests. No more translation gaps between what's requested and what's built.

In this session, you'll learn a workshop technique called Example Mapping that transforms vague feature requests into clear, testable requirements. We'll walk through how these examples written in plain language flow directly into automated tests using Behat and Behavior Driven Development (BDD), turning those examples into tests that automatically confirm you built the right thing.

What you'll learn:

  • Learning how to facilitate a collaborative requirements workshop with your team
  • Using the four-color card system (stories, rules, examples, questions)
  • Writing examples in plain language that everyone can understand
  • Translating examples into automated test scenarios for Behat
  • Integrating this testing approach into your Drupal development workflow
  • Real-world examples from Drupal projects

Who should attend:

This session is for developers, project managers, business analysts, and anyone involved in defining or building Drupal features. No prior testing experience required.

About the Speaker

Jessica Constantine

Senior Architect & Engineer at Palantir.net

Washington, UT

Jes Constantine bridges the gap between technical architecture and team collaboration as a Senior Engineer and Technical Architect at Palantir.net. She's passionate about integrating Drupal with modern web technologies—and equally passionate about the processes that help teams build the right thing. With experience spanning government, nonprofit, and digital consultancy work, she's seen firsthand how collaborative approaches transform requirements into working code. A returning DrupalCamp Florida presenter (2020: "Integrations: Managing Complexity and Ambiguity"), Jes brings practical insights from real-world projects to help teams work better together.