I keep on seeing announcements for the next great Agile Task Tracking tool. I just saw one posted to Scrum Development where it’s author said: “I haven't done much testing, so if you find a bug and want me to fix it let me know :-)”.

My reply: Congrats I'm sure you have an excellent application. I'm wondering if you see the irony - you're posting to an Agile group and say that your app has hardly been tested? What is your definition of Done? Do you use TDD? At least Unit Testing? What was your approach to acceptance testing?

My Promise

Here is my promise to all of my future clients, I won't show you an agile tool that wasn't developed using Agile methods. From future tool suppliers I need to know:

• Your Definition of Done
• Whether you use TDD? Or at least Unit Testing?
• What do you do for Acceptance Testing?
• How often do you release?
• What did you learn in your last retrospective?
• ....

If you can’t answer these questions I’m not interested in your tool.

Update I mis-understood the author's intent. He's not releasing a tool, so much as testing the waters to see if there is any interest. For these purposes I think he did the right thing. I still stand behind the statement I would show a client a tool where the vendor couldn't answer the above questions.

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