A single PBI with five acceptance criteria can produce five or more Test Case work items. Multiply that across a forecast of eight PBIs and you're staring at 40-some test cases in a Sprint. Without a naming convention, that list becomes a soup of vague titles that nobody can scan. So adopt one. It costs nothing and it pays off the moment your test count climbs.
The convention I recommend
The title is required on every Test Case work item, and it should be a short phrase that describes the criteria to test. A convention you could consider is "Verify [criteria]." It reads naturally and forces you to state what passing actually means.
- Verify a valid login redirects to the dashboard
- Verify an expired password prompts a reset
- Verify a page request returns a response in 5 seconds or less
You may also want to prefix the PBI's ID and/or short title to further identify each test case. So "Verify a valid login redirects to the dashboard" might become "7476 Login: Verify a valid login redirects to the dashboard." A small prefix, a big difference when you're hunting for the right test.
Why the prefix earns its keep
The payoff shows up when you try to see your tests across the whole Sprint. Azure Test Plans doesn't give you a first-class dashboard across all Requirement-based suites, so teams reach for the "show test points from child suites" setting or a Query-based suite that returns all of the Sprint's test cases. Both of those present test cases in a flat list, and neither follows your original Backlog Priority order. In that flat, alphabetical list, a naming convention is what lets you instantly tell which test case belongs to which PBI.
The same logic applies to regression. When you build a Query-based suite of regression tests, the test cases land in one flat list pulled from many Sprints. A convention that prefixes the PBI name or abbreviation makes them easy to identify at a glance.
Conventions feel like overhead when you have three test cases. They feel like a lifeline when you have ninety. Pick one before you need it.
A little discipline in your titles today, a lot less squinting at lists tomorrow. That's a Preferred Practice worth keeping.