If your into Visual Studio Team system or thinking about it then check out this link to the free ALM Catalyst Live Workshops series. These workshops consist of four two-hour interactive workshops that are repeated over a period of sixteen weeks (starting last week and running through the end of...

Speaking personally – ‘Big Deals for Me’ of 2008 I am starting the New Year with reflections on the year just gone in the form of three ‘big deals for me’ that came out of 2008. I’ll discuss each of these ‘Big Deals for Me’ , how they are inter-related and where I expect them to lead in 2009 over...

Following up on my Team system user group talk on Power Tools earlier this year I am stoked to see that the new edition of power tools previewed earlier in Brian Harry's blog here have now been released and are available for download here . These Power tools just keep getting more and more useful...

This guide in BETA1 form is a document that will help with both the understanding and execution of acceptance testing. It provides useful role definitions, process models and decision making guidance in a form that is relatively easy to digest compared to other works I’ve seen on the same subject. At...

I get asked reasonably often - "How can I use Team Foundation server (TFS) to support Sharepoint application development?” Guidance is now available on MSDN which promises to help you provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated...

One month after after our NZ Team system users group talk on Visual Studio Team system power Tools, over on Brian Harry's blog there is a new post previewing the next TFS Power tools release . Here are seven good reasons to talk with your Team system's admin about looking out for this power tool release;...

I will be covering some of this material in a fortcoming New Zealand Team system Users group session later this year. In the meantime this session is well worth watching as an early 'heads-up' for what is coming in Visual Studio Team System 10 (aka Rosario). Norman Guadagno, the Director of Product...

Object Management Group (OMG) are a modelling standards group. Last week at Tech-ed 2008 I gave a talk that included, amongst other things, a quick demo of the UML designers in the April CTP of Rosario (the next version of Visual Studio Team System). Lots of people have asked since what is our direction...

I love the power tools available for VS 2008 TFS - they add an incredible number of features and functions both for specilaist roles and for meeting specific needs in the areas of configuration integration and administration. The latest release is available here (Yes I know it says March release ...

The next round of Visual Studio Team system user groups are getting underway – we have Richard Vowles of Developers Inc speaking this time around; Title: How does your team manage its work? In this talk we will be discussing how various team members can keep track of work allocations, progress...

A Busy week. This one is for Visual Studio Team system users - I've extracted a number of blog posts and downloads that are most relevant for Team system users. Dont forget that if you wish to join the mailing list for the NZ Visual Studio Team systems users group you can do this by sending an email...

Two guys who can talk on a subject they love equals one Podcast gem . Recently, in a role reversal, Lukas Svobda host of NZ Arcast shoved a microphone under Ron Jacobs (hoster of worldwide Arcast) nose and they discussed mainly Test Driven development (TDD). Both of these guys are friends of mine...

Building quality in ! - The next release of Visual Studio Team developer has some very nice features for those 'true practitioners of software quality' in the form of Code Analysis and Code metrics. I say 'true practitioners of software quality' because there is a whole community out there who believe...

As I've mentioned on a number of occaisions a number of folk out there are keen to get something akin to a VSTS/TFS users group up and running - if you are interested in such a group and you live in Canturbury then check this out (Note that AKL and WLG based folk will get a chance later) Title...

Hot off the press from the P&P team key points for me are; Integration with WCF and Visual Studio not to mention Windows Forms and ASP.NET for the Validation Application block; Relevance to Ivar Jacobson's (one of the fathers of the Unified Process) recent article in Dr Dobbs Journal...

The Patterns and Practices team have been busy working on upgradeing the following content in VSTS guidance. There is some really good stuff in here espeically if you are wanting to perform some of the more 'intricate maneouvres' associated with source control and Build control - some advice on continuous...

The .Net User Groups are holding their next code camp in Auckland on April 14-15 . The theme is Architecture, Patterns and Practices. Presenters : Some of the speakers lined up include Jeremy Boyd , Andrew Peters , Ivan Towlson and Alex James . Who For ? : If you are an architect working in the...

Its true to say that there are now probably more developer aids and tools out there than you can shake a stick at. One of the ways that folk can seperate the wheat from the chaff is to look at things like the 17th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards . Great to see that DB-Pro took out the "Database...

Microsoft’s scalable ALM solution. Having led development teams in the past there are 4 key things that I look for in ALM solutions ; 1) They scale – they make sense for small thru large projects and teams; 2) They are relatively complete at covering the necessary roles including project management...

Enter Team Development including the Team of one. Picking up from yesterdays post we see a key component of ALM is multiple activities. Those activities from yesterdays blog post (Part 1) including project management, requirements management, modelling, code creation / change, building ,testing are...

Configuration and Management of Team Foundation Server http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/team/quickstarts/configure/default.aspx Microsoft IT Showcase: Visual Studio 2005 Team System http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=43e098e5-9087-44d2-846f-d33ab3dd966a&displaylang...

The Top down and bottom up perspectives. ALM is really two things depending on whether you are looking ‘Top down’ – from the business ownership perspective or ‘bottom up’ from the IT professional’s perspective. 1: Top Down – Business Ownership perspective – Asset Management: ALM is an IT governance...