Acceptance Plan

This Acceptance Plan template will help you gain acceptance, by:

• Creating a full list of all project deliverables
• Listing the criteria for gaining customer acceptance
• Putting in place, acceptance standards to be met

You can then use this template to create an Acceptance Plan, by:

• Identifying the acceptance test methods
• Allocating acceptance test resources
• Scheduling acceptance reviews with your customer
• Gaining your final acceptance of your deliverables

By creating an Acceptance Plan for your projects, you'll boost your chances of success - as you will constantly produce deliverables which meet your customers requirements. The Acceptance Plan template helps you to schedule customer acceptance tests to ensure that your deliverables meet your customers needs, every time.

What is an Acceptance Plan?

An Acceptance Plan (also known as an "Acceptance Test Plan") is a schedule of tasks that are required to gain the customers acceptance that what you have produced is satisfactory. It is more than just a task list though. An Acceptance Plan is in fact an agreement between you and the customer, stating the acceptance tasks that will be undertaken at the end of the project to get their final approval. The Acceptance Plan includes a list of the deliverables, the acceptance test activities, the criteria and standards to be met, and the plan for their completion.

When do I use an Acceptance Plan?

You should create an Acceptance Plan every time you need to produce a set of deliverables that require the customer's approval before completion. If the customer needs to approve anything, then you should agree upfront what actions will be taken to get their approval when the deliverables are complete. By creating an Acceptance Plan at the start of a project, it will save you time and hassle at the end, as the acceptance test actions will already have been pre-completed by the customer.