- providing feedback

- providing information

- clear stories

- identify hidden assumptions

- helping the customer

- helping the developer

Some others from Lisa (why can't I get the text formatting to work?)

- Unique dual perspective

- understands the customer 'big picture', cares about what customers care about; understands technical aspects and details from a programmer viewpoint.

- Thinks about the bad and the ugly - what all can happen to a system, not just the happy path

- helps identify and estimate testing tasks, of course writes high level and detailed tests in collaboration with customers etc.

>>An exercise I use to introduce this is getting people into groups to discuss: List the positive & negative aspects of having testers from programmers’ viewpoint. Then have each group share their lists. This is especially fun when you have a diverse group (testers, programmers, analysts etc). -- Lisa