XP Tester s Bill of Rights

XP Tester's Bill of Rights

Testers have rights that permit them to do their best work, as do all members of their XP team. Here's a Tester's Bill of Rights. Since testing involves programming, it overlaps with the Programmer's Bill of Rights defined in Kent Beck and Martin Fowler's Planning XP. Because testers see the application under development with a customer's point of view, their rights mirror some of the customer's rights.

• You have the right to bring up issues related to quality and process at any time.

• You have the right to ask questions of customers and programmers and receive timely answers.

• You have the right to ask for and receive help from anyone on the project team, including programmers, managers, and customers.

• You have the right to make and update your own estimates for your own tasks and have these included in estimates for stories.

• You have the right to the tools you need to do your job in a timely manner.

Like the programmers, you have the right to do your best work. You can't do it without a commitment to quality from your whole organization. The fact that your organization is using XP (and that they hired a tester) is a good indication that they care deeply about quality. If you find this isn't the case and that they're just using XP halfheartedly because it's trendy, because management decreed short releases are now required, or to pay lip service to quality, consider searching for other job opportunities. You can't succeed if the team isn't dedicated to producing good stuff.