Today we’re releasing the first official version of our latest process template – Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 (formerly known as Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta ). If you were following the beta, you know that this template was...

7/19/2010 Update - this post applies to the beta release of this template. For details on the RTW please see this updated post . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Today , we’re announcing and releasing a brand new process template…...

Richard Hundhausen has released two webcasts featuring the Microsoft Visual Studio 1.0 process template on Channel 9.  Both include Q&A at the end of the presentation.  Check them out at: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles_Sterling/Introducing...

If you’ve upgraded your Team Foundation Server to Team Foundation Server 2010 you’re probably wondering what happened to all your existing reports. Your Team Project works great after the upgrade, but it all your existing reports are now missing! Not...

With the public release of Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 I thought I’d post some of key differences between the process templates shipped with 2008 product and the new process templates shipping with 2010. This post will focus on the new MSF for Agile...

I posted an update on slideshare to my Scrum with TFS 2010 presentation.  The slide deck walks through in detail how to do Scrum with the new MSF for Agile 5.0 process template.  The deck goes into detail on managing your product backlog, planning...

Tip #3 : Choose a meaningful story points scale for estimating user stories. The MSF Agile 5.0 template uses story points as the estimation unit for items on the product backlog (User Stories). The field itself is a double and supports different number...

Tip #1 : Organize your product backlog into epics and themes using parent/child relationships. It’s common to say that user stories should be small – you want the team to be able to complete the implementation of a user story in a single...

Tip #2 : Write short/simple titles for each user story. In the MSF Agile 5.0 process, requirements are collected in the form of User Stories . This technique of expressing product requirements has become extremely popular in recent years as the Agile...

Tip #5 : Start to love and embrace acceptance criteria. Ask 10 mature agile teams “ How do you know when you’re ‘ done done ’?” and you’ll get the same answer from each one… get serious about writing acceptance...

I recently ran across a few posts from people looking for samples on how to programmatically read user comments from TFS work items using the TFS API.  It’s a simple operation, but it might not be clear at first unless you discover that you need...

Last week we updated the new Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template to include a fix for the Sprint Burndown report which was found to have a bug that caused an error when viewing the report in non-US locales.  If you created projects...

NOTE:  THE STEPS OUTLINED IN THIS POST ONLY APPLIED TO TFS 2010 BETA 2.  PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR THE SIMPLIFIED RTM STEPS.  Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 Beta2 introduces new features and capabilities to help agile teams with planning...

One of the big changes made to the Agile & CMMI process templates in 2010 was to move the guidance outside of the process template itself and into MSDN (the guidance was shipped in past versions as a set of HTML files provisioned on SharePoint at...

I’ve had a few people ask me about the key differences between the CMMI template shipped in TFS 2008 and how it compares to the new MSF CMMI 5.0 process template that shipped with TFS 2010 so I thought I’d detail some of the big differences.  First...

I’ve had a few people ask where they can get unbound (not connected to a team project) copies of the Agile workbooks so I’ve written this quick post to show where you can download them.  The unbound workbooks are stored in the process template and...

With the launch of Visual Studio 2010 last week I thought it would helpful to start a series of blog posts on how you can make the most out of the TFS 2010 process templates. If you’ve been following any of the beta releases you know that MSF Agile 5...

I wrote an article for the October issue of Visual Studio Magazine on the new Microsoft Visual Studio 1.0 process template.  It’s a basic walk through of how to get started using the Scrum template.  Included in the article is a look at the...

In last month’s column of Visual Studio Magazine we talked about Dan Pink’s book DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and how it relates to motivating Agile teams. If you haven’t read Drive, I’d recommend you pick up a copy. For a quick...

Tip #4: Use velocity when planning iterations. Before you plan an iteration it’s critical that your team understands its velocity. A team’s velocity is the number of story points that it can complete in a single iteration. Put even more...

NOTE:  THE STEPS OUTLINED IN THIS POST ONLY APPLIED TO TFS 2010 BETA 2.  PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR THE SIMPLIFIED RTM STEPS.  Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 Beta2 introduces new features and capabilities to help agile teams with planning...

I wanted to post a few screen shots of the updated Iteration Backlog workbook that will be shipping in Beta2 as a part of the the MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 process template.  The workbook has been completely redesigned to incorporate...

Today, Wrox released Professional Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010 ! This is a new book I co-authored with Steve Resnick and Michael de la Maza. The book serves as a road map for using Scrum to organize teams and activities and shows you how to...

Yesterday, I published my first installment of a new monthly column I’ll be writing for Visual Studio Magazine .  The column will focus on Agile practices and how to use them effectively on your teams.  The first installment focuses on holding...

The final versions of the MSF Agile 5.0 and MSF CMMI 5.0 process guidance for Visual Studio 2010 are now live on MSDN.