Since TFS 2005, we have delivered two process templates with TFS: MSF Agile and MSF for CMMI. Our goal with MSF Agile was to create a relatively simple process template for teams doing Agile software development. We designed it to enable a wide range of iterative development processes without too much process control. In doing so, it doesn’t match any existing process directly but rather is pretty flexible to adapt to your process.
Over the past couple of years, Scrum has evolved as an extremely popular iterative development process and we’ve been getting feedback that our Agile template feels unnatural for teams trying to do Scrum. For example, it uses different terminology like Iteration rather than Sprint, User Story rather than “Product Backlog item”, etc.
Today we are releasing a Beta of a new TFS process template specifically optimized for Scrum projects – Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta. You can also find it on our Process Templates and Tools page on MSDN.
To demonstrate some of the differences between our new Scrum process template and the existing MSF Agile process template, let’s look at the list of work item types in the two templates:
TFS Scrum v1.0 WITs
MSF Agile v5.0 WITs
Product Backlog Item
User Story
Bug
Task
Impediment
Issue
Test Case
Shared Steps
Sprint
As you can see, the new Scrum work item types match the standard Scrum terminology.
You can also see the difference in the state transition models for the new template:
Product Backlog Item and Bug Work Items
Task Work Item
Impediment Work Item
Both the states and the terminology are different and match the Scrum process.
We’ve also built some new reports designed to highlight the key Scrum tracking metrics:
Our goal has been to make our Scrum template “truly Scrum” so that if you pick up a book on Scrum or take a class on Scrum and then try out the TFS Scrum process template it will all make sense to you and correspond to everything you’ve learned. Of course it’s still completely customizable – so if you want to start with a stock Scrum process and tune it to your needs, you can do that too!
We’re working on the process guidance to go along with this new template. We’ll have it done before we release the final version of the template and I’ll update you as soon as it’s available.
As always, please let me know you if have any feedback.
Brian
Congratulations Brian. I think it is very usable template for TFS.
Fantastic Brian. Looking for ward to giving this a go… I think I will need to write something to migrate from Agile 5.0 to Scrum 1.0 now. I’ll add that to the list with Agile4.2->Agile5 and Conchago->Agile5
Looks very nice! Thank you!
What are the differences and relationship between MSFT Scrum v1.0 and Conchango (EMC) Scrum for Team System Version v3.0 (TFS 2010 RTM)?
Thanks.
There's really no relationship. In 2010, EMC has taken their Scrum template more in the direction of coupling it with consulting arrangements. They still have one and from what I know of it it's still more extensive than what we have. Over time, I expect ours will get more and more capable. With Scrum becoming so popular, we felt it was important to make sure there is a very broadly available one.
Hi Brian.
It looks very nice - are there any plans for making excel "planning" workbooks as seen in the MSF Agile template? I find them very useful for the scrum planning-meetings.
Brian, this is great. We have been working with the MSF Agile templates for a while and have been doing Scrum in the Agile 5 successfully but this Scrum process template is so much better. I can't wait for the the guys in my teams to get hands on with this template, I expect it will streamline our processes and make new team members even more productive in a their first sprint.
We haven't ported the Excel workbooks to work with the new template. We're in the process of designing some new Scrum sprint planning/execution tools and decided to bypass updating the workbooks unless people really felt that it was critical to have. We'll be taking feedback on priorities over the next couple of months.
The Conchango Task Board is a big crowd pleaser. Is anyone (MS or others) working on something similar for the MSF Agile or this new TFS Scrum templates?
It is. There are a number of task boards out there for TFS but the Conchango one is really good. We've been talking about the possibility of building one into TFS but haven't made any commitment yet.
Brian also blogged about Urban Turtle last month... a Task Board built by the guys at Pyxis.
They're working now on supporting the new scrum template with their board. You can have a look at: http://urbanturtle.com/
Great template. Will it be available in French?
Not in the first version. We'll look at localizing them later if there is sufficient demand.
It would be nice to see a moving average projection on at least the Sprint Burndown. This is something the SfTS template provides and we have been very happy with it.
Good idea.