Expectation
An expectation is an anticipated standard, condition, behavior, performance level, or outcome associated with a person, system, process, or interaction.
Lead Developer Career Guide
A standard of performance or conduct that other people hold for a person in a role.
- How it is used
- Clarifies the standards lead developers must recognize, communicate, and revisit with teams, clients, and mentees.
- How deep it goes
- Defines expectations against responsibilities and gives practical ways to clarify, revise, and document them, including a formal performance process.
- Examples
- Uses buffered time estimates, weekly project-manager check-ins, and a client request for extra features under a tight deadline.
- What you can do after
- Practice/perform it: Agree on standards early, check understanding, update them when circumstances change, and address gaps with feedback.
Think Like a Software Engineering Manager
An expectation is an assumption or requirement about inputs, outputs, behavior, responsibilities, or outcomes in a work process.
- How it is used
- Guides engineering managers in aligning people, tasks, support, priorities, and outcomes across workplace relationships.
- How deep it goes
- Provides a practical framework covering clarity, communication, negotiation, adaptation, feedback, perception, and fairness rather than implementation details.
- Examples
- Uses a deployment handoff, a shifting product roadmap, team skill goals, and perceived performance fairness to make expectation gaps concrete.
- What you can do after
- Apply it to set, communicate, negotiate, adapt, and reinforce clear workplace expectations while reducing ambiguity and rework.
Read how Think Like a Software Engineering Manager explains expectation →
BDD in Action, Second Edition
An expectation is a declarative condition that evaluates whether an observed value or state satisfies a specified criterion.
- How it is used
- Verifies that observed interface states satisfy business-facing acceptance criteria during automated delivery checks.
- How deep it goes
- Combines presence, content, status, synchronization, and dismissal checks, while deferring the internal implementation of reusable tasks.
- Examples
- Uses a temporary duplicate-email toaster, expected message text, success or error status, and reusable submission-verification tasks.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Serenity/JS to express readable, reusable checks for interface messages and submission outcomes.
Read how BDD in Action, Second Edition explains expectation →
Think Like a CTO
An expectation is a clearly communicated standard about how an interaction, responsibility, or situation should proceed.
- How it is used
- Clarifies interaction norms, role success, review standards, and remote-work availability.
- How deep it goes
- Provides practical scheduling, competency-definition, and remote-work procedures while stopping short of universal rules.
- Examples
- Uses scheduled conversations, core-hour agreements, absence signals, and developer competency-level descriptions.
- What you can do after
- Apply clear standards to schedule attention, define role success, and coordinate remote-team availability.
The Art of Unit Testing 3e
An expectation is the behavior or result that a test predicts for a specified unit and scenario.
- How it is used
- Clarifies the result a test predicts for a unit and scenario, especially through test naming and interaction verification.
- How deep it goes
- Explains expectations through USE naming, local mock setup, readability concerns, and overspecification risks.
- Examples
- Uses verifyPassword errors, failing password rules, logger calls, mock setup, and received-interaction checks as concrete examples.
- What you can do after
- Diagnose failures through clearer test names and reduce fragile tests by limiting unnecessary mock expectations.
Related concepts
- responsibilitycontrasts with · A responsibility is a duty, capability, or area of accountability assigned to a person, role, class, object, or other entity.
- leveling guideconfigured by · A leveling guide is an organizational framework that defines roles, responsibilities, expectations, and criteria across job levels.
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