Would You, Could You With TFS?
As you know Team Foundation Server 2010 supports most (but not all) Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) activities as the busy diagram below (from InCycle Software) suggests:
In addition to identifying the few gaps in ALM support (and ways to plug them), there are a couple of other myths that we busted last week at TechEd during my interactive presentation titled "Would You, Could You with TFS":
Visual Studio Technical Learning Center at TechEd 2011
I wanted to post a short video of the Technical Learning Center (TLC) at this year’s Tech-Ed conference in Atlanta, GA. The TLC is the place to see Microsoft product demos, talk with industry experts, learn about Microsoft services, and connect with your peers. In case you didn’t make it, the video below shows just how cool and organized the area was.
Professional Scrum Developer Questions asked at TechEd 2011
| Q. | We are implementing Product Life Cycle Management (PLCM) as part of our ISO certification. How does Scrum fit into the ISO world? We are also adopting 3M’s (our parent company) Lean Six Sigma process. Same question, how does Scrum fit into Lean Six Sigma? |
| A. | PLCM (or just PLM as some refer to it) describe the life of a product in the market. The lifecycle has stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and saturation/decline. Scrum only deals with the development of the product. Where the two management ideas intersect would be in release planning. The product owner, and other stakeholders, decide what features (PBIs) need to be in each of those releases. This is manifested through the product backlog. Smart planning and prioritization can help the product grow to maturity and hit (and stay in) the sweet spot of the PLCM. As for how the larger discussion of ISO and Scrum fit together, I recommend reading this IEEE paper on the subject which concludes that ISO does not equate to quality but only helps ensure the Agile (Scrum) practices are being followed. While Lean Six Sigma and Scrum have similar goals, the integration of the two strategies must be done carefully to ensure success. Here are are a couple of articles on the subject: Integrating LSS and Scrum and Can Scrum Support Six Sigma? |
| Q. | In Team Foundation Server, using hours (for baseline, remaining, and completed) how best to move an uncompleted task over to the next Sprint? |
| A. | From a Scrum point of view, you wouldn’t want to move a task to the next Sprint unless the PBI or Bug that it was associated with was selected and committed-to by the Scrum Team. Assuming that is the case, then the developer who owns the task would re-estimate the remaining work. Tracking baseline and completed hours are considered waste because they don’t produce meaningful metrics in Scrum. Personally, I would just create a new task work item so that the old task would maintain its history and state according to the previous sprint. |
| Q. | We have 5 .NET developers and 5 AS/400 developers. I know Team Foundation Server makes sense for .NET but can it store the RPG code? |
| A. | Absolutely. Team Foundation Server is more than capable to store any development related artifact, such as RPG source code files. As the team matures in its understanding of ALM and usage of Team Foundation Server they can create and use work items to plan and track their work and associate to the checked-in code for maximum traceability. The question comes down to ease-of-use and how to allow the RPG developers to access source control with the least amount of friction. Ideas include using the TF.exe command line utility, the Team Foundation Power Tools Windows shell extension, or the Eclipse plug-in or cross-platform support found in Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2010. |
| Q. | In getting started, would it be better to get Team Foundation Server or go get ScrumMaster certification? |
| A. | To get started with Scrum, download and read the Scrum guide from Scrum.org. If you require training on the basics of Scrum then consider attending a Professional Scrum Foundations class, otherwise attend a Professional Scrum Master class. Passing the assessment to achieve the certification is optional. Once your team starts maturing in their game of Scrum, then consider implementing it using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server – unless of course you are already using TFS, then start using Visual Studio Scrum as soon as possible. |
| Q. | Where do I store the D.O.D. (Definition of Done) in Team Foundation Server? |
| A. | Unfortunately there is no first class (read: auditable) way of storing a team’s definition of done in Team Foundation Server. Your choices are to store the list in a document or on a wiki page on the (SharePoint) project portal. You might also consider using Thomas Schissler’s work item control. |
| Q. | Moving from Team Foundation Server 2008, importing work items from various sources (e.g. using Excel), can the Agile Excel templates be used? |
| A. | Yes, Excel is an extremely flexible way of importing work items from many data sources (not just Excel). |
Debugging a Dysfunctional Team
UPDATE (3 June 2011): Watch the recorded presentation on Channel 9.
Yesterday I gave a talk at TechEd on Dysfunctional software development teams. We primarily focused on people dysfunctions, but also talked about process and tool dysfunctions.
If you attended, thank you for patience with my laryngitis. You can find the presentation attached below.
Files from Implementing Scrum pre-conference at Microsoft TechEd
UPDATE (3 June 2011): Here are the answers to questions that were asked during the pre-conference.
Thank you for attending the preconference yesterday. I hope the presentation and ensuing conversations were of value to you. I know they had value for me, and I thank you for attending.
You can find links to the presentation and some of the demo files below. Here are the bookmarks we covered as well:
Files: Presentation (12mb) | Slides (8mb) | Demo files (18kb)
Actually at Microsoft’s MTC in Reston, Virginia, but close enough.
Thanks to everyone who attended our event, either online or in-person, last week. It was great to have such a large group that was so interested in Scrum and Visual Studio’s ability to enact it. We had some great discussions, questions, and real-world examples.
Excluding folders and files when adding to source control
Nov 2016 Update: I’ve had a few people reach out to me over the years and ask about how to do this in 2013, 2015, etc. The answer is to use a .tfignore file as outlined here.
In Team Foundation Server when you are adding items to source control, Microsoft automatically excludes certain folders and files:
This is helpful when adding a folder (especially with subfolders) of files, specifically Visual Studio projects. The thinking is that you typically don’t want to add files in Debug, Release, or ClientBin folders as well as certain binary files (.pdb, .obj, .dll, .exe, etc.). You can always recreate them later as needed.
Technical Session Levels (100, 200, 300, and 400)
You always hear about "level 200", "level 300", and "level 400" talks at conferences. Well, I have always wondered there was a standard rating system that all speakers agree to. If so, whose rating system would it be? I know that there is a standard system for rating movies (G, PG, PG13, R, NC17). I tried to create a Wikipedia page a few years ago but it got removed because of some reason or another. Probably because nobody agreed with me.
Agile Scrum Development Practices with the Experts - see you in DC next month
If you are in the DC area next month, you should attend this exciting, free event where will explore Scrum in the real-world and how you can adopt a more Agile approach to software projects leveraging Team Foundation Server 2010 for development projects on any platform.
Ken Schwaber will be delivering Management & Scrum: From Here to Agility in the morning and I will be demonstrating how Visual Studio 2010 can implement Scrum in the afternoon.
