If you’re not heading to Seattle for the Visual Studio 2012 Launch Event on September 12th, don’t worry: We’re coming to you!

Be our guest and attend in person to experience all of the incredible new capabilities of Visual Studio 2012 first hand.

UPDATE

For those of you who have attended the events so far and are looking for the slides/content, look no further! Everything is here:  http://aka.ms/VS2012Roadshow

I’ll be there, will you?

Discover how Visual Studio 2012 allows you to collaborate better and be more agile. See how it helps you turn big ideas into more compelling apps. Experience how it integrates best practices that accelerate development and deployment.  You’ll enjoy several sessions which will take Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, and Test Professional through their paces to show off what’s possible with this incredible release!

Register today for a city near you (dates and locations listed below), we hope to see you there!

Cities & Dates

Registration/check-in begins at 8:30.  The event runs from 9:00AM to 4:00PM.

As the Visual Studio family of products (Visual Studio, TFS, Test Professional) nears its 2012 release, I thought I’d bring some short hits – tidbits, if you will – to my blog. Some of these are pretty obvious (well-documented, or much-discussed), but some may be less obvious than you’d think. Either way, it’s always good to make sure the word is getting out there. Hope you enjoy!

When to Use the Feedback Client

One of the “new” new features of TFS 2012 is the addition of the Microsoft Feedback Client for collecting feedback from stakeholders, end users, etc.  This tool integrates with TFS to provide a mechanism to engage those stakeholders and more seamlessly include their insights in the lifecycle.

Several of my customers however, perhaps with brains overloaded with the possibilities of this capability, have asked me, “So when exactly do I use this? When do I request feedback?”

Well, the answer, as it often times is, is “it depends.”

First, if you aren’t aware of the two ways to use the Microsoft Feedback Client, check out (shameless plug) my previous post covering this.

The more I play around with this tool and talk about it with customers, the more scenarios I find in which this new 2012 capability adds value.

Now back to that “it depends” answer.. The key thing to remember for using the feedback capability is that there is no hard and fast rule for when you should use it.  But here are three main scenarios:

• Voluntary, Unsolicited Feedback – When a stakeholder/end user has something to say, let them say it with the Feedback Client.  Instead of an email, entry on a spreadsheet or SharePoint list, using the Feedback Client leverages the goodness of Team Foundation Server (not to mention proximity to the actual development team) to log, manage, relate, and report on the stakeholder’s insights. If a business analyst or project manager likes the feedback provided, it’s just a few clicks to get a backlog item created from the feedback and shoved onto the backlog.  The feedback then becomes a supporting item for the PBI, helping address any questions as to why the PBI was added to the backlog.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) – When a new feature has been developed and made available for UAT, request feedback from one or more knowledgeable stakeholders to get sign-off.  Linking the feedback request to the PBI/task/bug being tested for acceptance not only gives additional traceability in validating sign-off; but it provides the team additional “clout” if a stakeholder later voices a concern about a feature completion (“You said you liked it, see?”).
• Checkpoints/Continuous Feedback – Feedback doesn’t have to be just at the beginning and end of a sprint. Any time there’s something new that QA’s already had a run at, why not involve a stakeholder? While you can, you don’t have to wait until a sprint’s over to get feedback.

 From MSDN, “Planning and Tracking Projects”:

What other scenarios can you think of where you could leverage the new feedback capabilities in VS 2012?

As the Visual Studio family of products (Visual Studio, TFS, Test Professional) nears its 2012 release, I thought I’d bring some short hits – tidbits, if you will – to my blog. Some of these are pretty obvious (well-documented, or much-discussed), but some may be less obvious than you’d think. Either way, it’s always good to make sure the word is getting out there. Hope you enjoy!

The Feedback Client’s Two Modes

One of the “new” new features of TFS 2012 is the addition of the Microsoft Feedback Client (download) for collecting feedback from stakeholders, end users, etc. This tool integrates with TFS to provide a mechanism to engage those stakeholders and more seamlessly include their insights in the lifecycle.

It’s important to know that this new tool provides a mechanism for collecting feedback in two distinct manners, voluntary and requested. The rest of this post will walk through each of these “modes”.

Regardless of the mode used to provide feedback, this feedback gets stored in TFS as a work item (of type Feedback Response) which then gets all the benefits of being a work item (auditing, assignment, linking, reporting, etc.). As you can imagine, this is a much more effective way of tracking feedback than email, lists, and forms. We’ll talk about that (plus licensing) toward the end of this post.

Voluntary Feedback Mode

This mode is used naturally by a stakeholder (I’m using the term “stakeholder” to mean anyone that may want to have a say in how a product evolves) to provide unsolicited feedback about a product or application. This means that if a stakeholder is using an application and thinks of an idea to improve it (or maybe even to report a problem), they can fire up the Feedback Client and include annotated screenshots, record video or audio, and notes.  

In this screenshot, I provide “voluntary” feedback that I should be more prominently featured on Bing. Yes, I’m that way.. ;)

This is an incredible light and easy way for a stakeholder to feel like they have a say/vote in the direction of an application.

Requested Feedback Mode

As the name implies, this kind of feedback is given in response to a request for feedback from another user. Requesting feedback begins in Team Web Access on a project’s home page, by clicking on the “Request feedback” link under Activities. 

The requestor fills out the Request Feedback form:

Which sends the following email to all included stakeholders (yes, you can send a single request to multiple recipients, as well as request multiple items of feedback in a single request):

When the stakeholder clicks the link in the email, the Feedback Client will launch and walk the stakeholder through the process.

Once the feedback is submitted, everything shoots back into TFS and is automatically linked to the Feedback Request work item.

Looking at the feedback response in my example:

Okay, Now What?

Now that you have feedback in TFS, what do you do with it?

Several things, actually.  First, leverage the linking capabilities of work items to associate feedback with the appropriate task, backlog item, bug, or whatever. In my example, I linked my feedback request to a PBI:

This provides an even more cohesive story for “covering” the PBI.  Now not only can you see from a PBI all the tasks, storyboards, bugs, etc. related it to it, but you have a way to track “sign-off”, or at least unofficial support from stakeholders about the “doneness” of the backlog item.

Also, you may want to is create a few shared queries to better help you view and track feedback.

In this example, I created 4 queries to help me manage feedback (again, just an example):

• All Feedback – Flat list showing all feedback responses (voluntary or requested).
• Feedback Requests & Responses – Direct links query showing all feedback request and any associated responses.
• Feedback without PBI – Flat list showing all feedback requests and responses that are not associated with a Product Backlog Item.
• Unsolicited Feedback – Flat list showing all voluntary feedback.

Lastly, if stakeholder feedback is important to you, add one of your feedback queries as a Team Favorite, which will make it show up on your team’s home page.

Licensing

• To provide feedback (i.e. use the Microsoft Feedback Client), there is no licensing requirement at all. The Feedback Client tool is free to download, and there is no TFS CAL requirement to use it.
• To request feedback (i.e. solicit feedback from others), you need to be part of one of the following licensing groups: Visual Studio Premium, Visual Studio Ultimate, or Visual Studio Test Professional.

There’s plenty of documentation on stakeholder feedback, but something that can fall through the cracks is the fact that there are indeed two modes of using this capability.

Hope this helps!