Willy's Cave

Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Release (Part 3)

Willy-P. Schaub — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:58:41 GMT

We continue from Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Projects (Part 1) and Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Guidance (Part 2), which covered the high level project and guidance project views. In this post we will have a closer look at release process that each project lead goes through when preparing for BETA, Release Candidate (RC) or Release To Market (RTM).

Remember that the objective is to create a consolidated and easy to follow map of common ALM Ranger tasks as part of projects, in this case a Guidance project.

To cut a long story short, let us look at the steps that each ALM Rangers project team goes through when it is time to “click” the launch button and watch the hard work, the long nights and the endless commitment and passion is presented for release.

Once the deliverables have gone through the numerous reviews, as discussed in previous posts, it is up to the product owner to approve the release to “ship”. In essence the project team goes into a deadlock until they get the following signal from the PO:
… after which a wave of activity is triggered.
All documentation receives a watermark to clearly indicate the relevant release status, ranging from ALPHA, BETA, RC to no watermark, which indicates that the artefacts are part of a major release, i.e. v1, v2, etc.
Any source code that is included with tooling and guidance projects is validated to ensure that it adheres to the sample source guidelines and has gone through relevant code reviews and assessments. Binaries, such as tools, DLLs and installers have to go through additional assessments and approval checkpoints and are typically not included in ALPHA or BETA releases.
All the bits and pieces needed to publish the release on Codeplex are packaged in one ZIP file. The bits and pieces include:
- Hands-on Lab (HOL) Package Zip
- All documentation in PDF format
- All videos in 1280x720 dimension format
- Other supporting bits, such as capacity planning workbooks
- Download release notes
The backlog is updated, whereby all completed and approved (point 1) Epics are switched to done and the remaining work, if any, is pruned for the next iteration.
The last step, before the project leads enjoys a cool beer, is to drop the release package in the appropriate drop point, which triggers the publication on Codeplex by the support team.
The team then continues with the next iteration, for example aiming for the release candidate, or switch to maintenance mode if they have just released the RTM.

Every ALM Rangers solution is geared at delivering value to the community and your candid feedback and success stories is an important catalyst and fuel for the next lifecycle of the project. :)

Introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Krithika Sambamoorthy

Willy-P. Schaub — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:24:04 GMT

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers introductions. See An index to all Rangers covered on this blog for more details.

Who are you?

Krithika Sambamoorthy, Premier Field Engineer, Microsoft.

What makes you “tick”?

I’m passionate about technology, and I enjoy interacting with customers.

Where do you live?

I live in Minneapolis, MN.

Where is the place you call home?

Madurai, India. I was born and raised there before I came to the US when I was 16.

Why are you active in the Rangers program?

I’m getting involved in the Rangers program because I’m really passionate about promoting the best use of Microsoft’s ALM technologies. It also gives me an opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in the industry!

What is the best Rangers project you worked on and why?

I’m new to the team, but I’ll be working on the next version of the Branching & Merging guidance. This is exciting for me because I often find myself providing customers guidance around branching strategies.

TechReady 14 Report … T+4–Final Day Report from Willy’s perspective

Willy-P. Schaub — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:50:28 GMT

TechReady is over … the dust is settling and I am convinced that all ALM Rangers are relaxing and recovering from a loooooooooooooooooooooong week of information overload :)

Here are the other TR14 blog posts:

When I looked at the (not yet final) results, I was amazed at the quality of sessions delivered and the phenomenal average achieved by the ALM Rangers. The developer track achieved showed an astonishing average of 4.44/5 this morning, which equates to 88.8%. The ALM Rangers average of their sessions, highlighted in red below) was a proud 4.712/5 this morning, which is 94%! ALM Rangers, you guys ROCK!

In terms of the Hands-on Labs, we achieved a 4,238/5 average, again ROCKING, considering the VERY critical developer community

Here are the final pictures of TechReady14.

	What a stunning view from the 6th floor in Battlestar #41. The last day of TechReady welcomed us with a glorious blue sky.
	Bob Hardister in his Battlestar #41 sabbatical cave
	Pierre Donyegro, Ewald Hofman (pink shirt) and Giulio Vian (behind laptop) delivered the last ALM Rangers session, which was interesting, informative and very collaborative. As the two last photos show, taken 15min after session was over, the Rangers battled to call it a day.
	… the last view of Seattle before boarding the bus home.

C U @ TR15!

How the Visual Studio ALM Rangers use Team Foundation Service to Get Ready for Visual Studio 11

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:28:37 GMT

Cowabunga! The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have published their latest article on www.codeproject.com , which is focused on one of the most exciting dogfooding initiatives we have been involved in … read all about it in How the Visual Studio ALM Rangers use Team Foundation Service to Get Ready for Visual Studio 11.

TechReady 14 Report … T+3 – The best ever TR session happened today!

Willy-P. Schaub — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:15:00 GMT

I am exhausted and therefore today’s post will be brief and include mainly photographic evidence

Take note of tomorrow’s ALM Ranger sessions, highlighted in yellow, struck through indicates that session has been delivered:

DEV329 * : Learning the new source code management (SCM) features of Visual Studio 11 (cancelled)
DEV353 * : Beyond BRDLite
DEVCT202 * : How to land ALM Assessments by the customers
DEVCT203 * : Quick References
DEVCT301 * : Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance(ABE)
DEVCT302 * : VM Factory
DEVCT303 * : TFS Upgrade Guidance
DEVCT306 * : Team Foundation Server Project Planning
DEVCT307 * : Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guidance
DEVCT309 * : Test Release Management Guidance (first external ALM Ranger Lead to present @ TR!!!)
DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure
DEVCT313 * : Practical Kanban Guidance

Finally, the usual pictures …

	Today’s beer is dedicated to Bill Heys! Bill we all missed you and your branching discussions. We hope to see you back at TR15!
	William Bartholomew started our day with two phenomenal Team Foundation Build sessions.
	Bob Hardister presented the first ALM MVP Ranger session at TechReady,doing a sterling job do engage the audience.
	If you missed William’s “Hedgehog” session, titled DEVCT201 Learning .NET Gadgeteer, Netduino, and the .NET Micro Framework, then you missed the BEST TR session I have ever been in. “WOW”, Kudos to William for a very special and exciting session!
	Bijan Javidi and Babu George Padamadan … our picture of the day!
	Ethem Azun delivered a professional and very interesting ALM Assessment session. Looking forward to these bits!
	Yes, no more email, hotmail or other messages queued on my phone! Let’s run before the view changes …

See you tomorrow for the last ALM Ranger session … delivered by none other than Pierre Donyegro!

Rangers Flash - January 2012

Willy-P. Schaub — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:41:00 GMT

Projects News

Visual Studio Coded UI Microsoft Word Plug-in (VSCUG) … as part of the latest sabbatical, we improved the code quality and are preparing the Codeplex project.
Word4TFS (TFSWP) … The big change to the design experience is now implemented, we have two bugs to clear and then testing can begin in earnest again.
Visual Studio 11 Readiness … has entered the BETA stabilization phase. 16 of 20 projects are represented at the internal Microsoft TechReady event that is being hosted in Seattle, as we type this flash in the form of breakout, chalk talk or hands-on lab sessions. The Ranger teams are freezing their BETA release in February and will then continue working towards the release candidate and release.
Watch the following blogs for release announcements:
- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm
- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub
Common question: “OK, ALM Rangers, how about being even more transparent and answering the when?” You asked and we are herewith sharing our current BETA timeline for the ALM Ranger solutions.

In essence any of the Visual Studio 11 ALM Ranger projects that get the signal from the product owner (PO) on or before the 13^th February, will make an appearance on Codeplex in the second half of February. The other projects will trickle in when and as the product owners are satisfied with the features and quality of the relevant BETA.

Community News

Rangers Sabbatical #4 … the fourth sabbatical started on January 23^rd, but ended abruptly when Michael Fourie had to return to the UK. While CodedUI Add-In part of the sabbatical was postponed as a consequence, the Word4TFS part of the sabbatical is being worked on by Bob Hardister.
Kudos to Charles Sterling “Chuck”, for being there for the MVPs, when he should have been in his own TAP session and for always going the extra mile to make the MVPs feel at home or ensuring they can get home.
New Rangers who were mentioned on the Rangers Index this month: William Salazar. If you are an ALM Ranger and not yet listed on the index … why not?
News from TechReady 14
- TechReady 14 Report … T-3 days and a going back to the future
- TechReady 14 Report … T-1 days and getting nervous
- TechReady 14 Report … T+0 - Day 1 was focused on Ruck and Quick Reference Guidance
- TechReady 14 Report … T+1 – Four ALM Ranger Sessions dominated the day

Informal definition of an ALM Rangers sabbatical

ALM Rangers who invest their “vacation” to work on ALM Ranger solutions close/as-part-of the product group! The huge value to the product group and the ALM Rangers is razor sharp focus, collaboration and innovation. The value to the ALM Ranger, other than making great contacts, remains to be a mystery :)

… William Salazar, latest Ranger on our Rangers Index

The special Heroes Corner

Context: One of our Dev11 Readiness projects had a burn-down chart that inspired fear into anyone who dared to watch it and placed the project in a DEFCON 1 state, placing it on the queue for potential cancellations for TechReady 14 and the readiness wave.
Our hero: John Bergman (pictured on the right), who incidentally is also contributing to other projects, came forward and asked “where can I help?”. You will notice the sharp dip and rapid burn down on the chart above. That was 99% thanks to John’s efforts, tenacity and collaboration, which left everyone gobsmacked! The project is back on the readiness grid and probably down to DEFCON 3.

In other words, we are still wearing helmets, but have started smiling again

Visual Studio Gallery and Other Bits and Pieces

AIT TeamSystemPro Team has released a new version of our AIT Dependency Manager to the Community
New version of Skype and Messenger providers … Nico Orschel was busy over Christmas :)
Work Item Visualization … a super cool utility by Jeff Levinson and Tiago Pascoal.

Call to Action for ALM Rangers!

CALL #1 … One thing we love is celebrating your successes. Unfortunately not being omniscient we simply don’t know about many of them. So if you have done or know of some outstanding contributions/actions please send them to Chuck and Willy to post in our internal newsletters that go to our upper management and the MVP leads.
CALL #2 … Update your personal contact details in the Ranger Contact Details to avoid losing access to the ALM Ranger infrastructure if you have not already done so!
CALL #3 … The Dev 11 Readiness project teams are desperately looking for reviewers to help them review and improve the BETA content. Are you interested in reviewing one or more of the Dev11 Readiness projects? Contact us if you have time and an interest in helping!
CALL #4 … You may receive a re-invite to the Visual Studio ALM Rangers UserVoice forum. Do not reject the invite if you want to raise ideas and vote on future Ranger projects!

Closing Humo(u)r

… for all our TechReady presenters J

For more information refer to: Rangers Website | Rangers Solutions | Rangers Blog.
To include content in future Ranger Flashes: Send your one-two liners to us latest a week before the last day of the month.

TechReady 14 Report … T+2–Beyond BRDLite and Architecture

Willy-P. Schaub — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:57:05 GMT

Today was a loooooooooooooong day as we had sessions all day, followed by the Ask The Expert gathering. It was really great to see all the colleagues from around the world, especially those who made it across from good old South-Africa

Today’s ALM Ranger sessions were focused on BRDLite, Build Customization and Architecture Tooling Guidance. The guys did a sterling job in representing all three projects!

Take note of tomorrow’s ALM Ranger sessions, highlighted in yellow, ~~struck through~~ indicates that session has been delivered:

~~DEV329 * : Learning the new source code management (SCM) features of Visual Studio 11~~ (cancelled)
~~DEV353 * : Beyond BRDLite~~
DEVCT202 * : How to land ALM Assessments by the customers
~~DEVCT203 * : Quick References~~
~~DEVCT301 * : Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance(ABE)~~
~~DEVCT302 * : VM Factory~~
~~DEVCT303 * : TFS Upgrade Guidance~~
~~DEVCT306 * : Team Foundation Server Project Planning~~
DEVCT307 * : Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guidance
DEVCT309 * : Test Release Management Guidance (first external ALM Ranger Lead to present @ TR!!!)
~~DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure~~
~~DEVCT313 * : Practical Kanban Guidance~~

Finally, the usual pictures …

	As always I was on the lookout for new beers I could evaluate
	Gregg Boer took this photo of me and I might as well scare everyone away … I am really wondering what Mario Rodriguez was thinking in the background
	Martin Woodward in the speaker room … this phenomenal guy is always smiling :)
	John Jacob, Brandon Hawbaker and John Spinella presenting a great BRDLite session. As always try not to peek under the presenter’s table … especially in a build session! Bijan Javidi checking the track averages and Joe Donnelly pondering over BRDLite.
	A selection of snapshots taken at the Ask The Experts evening … love Rob’s orange cap!
	My favourite picture of the day. Three amazing colleagues and gentlemen … Brian Blackman, Charles Sterling “Chuck” and Pierre Donyegro.

See you tomorrow for two more exciting ALM Ranger sessions, whereby the one will be presented by an ALM MVP Project Lead … watch the space!

Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Guidance (Part 2)

Willy-P. Schaub — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:38:46 GMT

We continue from Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Projects (Part 1), which covered the high level project view. In this post we will have a closer look at the new experimental guidance checklist for GUIDANCE-type projects.

Remember that the objective is to create a consolidated and easy to follow map of common ALM Ranger tasks as part of projects, in this case a Guidance project.

Selecting the GUIDANCE project quick reference

Option 1 – Click on the GUIDANCE tile ion the ALM Rangers Dashboard

Option 2 – Click on the Guidance Project – Process & Checklists URL on the PROJECTS project quick reference

Stepping through the GUIDANCE sheet

Each guidance project is based on one or more Epics (killer features), which are owned by the Product Owner and driven by the Project Lead.
The team starts by revising the backlog, creating product backlog items (PBIs) and tasks needed to implement each Epic. In addition the team defines the sprints/iterations and the team member capacity. It is important to define pessimistic capacity estimates due to limited a part-time bandwidth!
Once the backlog is defined, the team iterates through the sprints/iterations using the process template and methodology of their choice at a team level, but using Ruck as a bare minimum. Content is developed using the ALM Ranger templates for consistency and based on the User Education (UE) Review Guidelines defined by Patricia Wagner.
Common Questions:
1: Who creates the sprint backlog? The team, with optional guidance from the product owner.
2: Who prioritizes the sprint backlog? The team, with optional guidance from the product owner.
3: Who assigns or grabs tasks? The team members typically grab tasks. Alternatively the project lead could assign tasks to team members to minimise impact on team members and ask the team to verify.
Once content reaches a near feature-complete and quality level, the team reviews the deliverables and releases ALPHA release for all ALM Rangers to review.
A UE Technical Review is performed on the content. The team iterates through revisions until the guidance reaches a BETA quality.
The Product Owner reviews and approves the BETA release, which is typically released on Codeplex.
Once the guidance is feature complete and has passed all the relevant reviews and assessments, the Release Candidate is optionally released, followed by the Release To Market (RTM).
Part of the RC and RTM releases are HOL Packages which allow users and the VM Factory to setup the HOL environment in an automated manner.
If a follow-up release is voted for and approved as mentioned in Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Projects (Part 1), the next set of Epics are tackled, restarting from step 1.
The sheet also summarises the core responsibilities of the Ranger, the Project Lead and the Project Owner.

What do you think"? Add your thoughts as comments or email me direct.

TechReady 14 Report … T+1 – Four ALM Ranger Sessions dominated the day

Willy-P. Schaub — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:38:27 GMT

Today was a phenomenal ALM Rangers day, with project leads, project members and product owners pouring invaluable knowledge, energy and passion into the sessions. A huge THANK YOU and Kudos to Paul, Pramod, Ed, Rob, Gregg, Tina, Mario and most importantly a phenomenal audience!

We tried a number of new experiments and hope that we will get candid feedback to allow us to pick the nuggets and continue to improve the sessions during this and future TechReady events. Some of the new experiments included:

Intro videos to give the audience a quick overview of the ALM Rangers while settling down.
Show what we have videos for guidance projects to efficiently and quickly step through all content.
Mini-workshop exercises (10min) to get the audience thinking in terms of the session context and coming up with questions.

Take note of tomorrow’s ALM Ranger sessions, highlighted in yellow, ~~struck through~~ indicates that session has been delivered:

~~DEV329 * : Learning the new source code management (SCM) features of Visual Studio 11~~ (cancelled)
DEV353 * : Beyond BRDLite
DEVCT202 * : How to land ALM Assessments by the customers
~~DEVCT203 * : Quick References~~
DEVCT301 * : Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance(ABE)
~~DEVCT302 * : VM Factory~~
~~DEVCT303 * : TFS Upgrade Guidance~~
~~DEVCT306 * : Team Foundation Server Project Planning~~
DEVCT307 * : Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guidance
DEVCT309 * : Test Release Management Guidance
~~DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure~~
~~DEVCT313 * : Practical Kanban Guidance~~

Finally, the usual pictures …

	The search for more new beers continues … last night it was Rogue :)
	Bob Hardister and Paul Meyer (VMFactory Master) in the VM Factory session.
	Rob Jarratt and Gregg Boer in the Practical Kanban session.
	Ed Holloway and Pramod Vasanth in the Upgrade Guidance session (left). Bijan Javidi ensuring the new ALM Rangers shirt first Ed (right).
	Bijan and Gregg Boer (left), and Bijan and Mario Rodriguez (right) “all smiles”
	Experiment #1 … 10min mini-workshops. Paul Meyer (VMFactory Master) was driving the one group and Pierre Donyegro the other.
	Mario Rodriguez was on such a roll, traveling through scaling topics with full afterburners, that Tina Erwee and Gregg probably often wondered when he would take a deep breath Wow, Mario you have such energy and passion!
	Best not to look under the speaker table … but important to remember notes made on the whiteboard.
	Experiment #2 … the show what we have and quick introduction videos.

See you tomorrow at the BRDLite and Architecture sessions, and at Ask-The-Expert in the evening.

TechReady 14 Report … T+0 - Day 1 was focused on Ruck and Quick Reference Guidance

Willy-P. Schaub — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:16:26 GMT

We had a turmoil first day, with both the second part of the ALM Rangers sabbatical #4 starting (see upcoming flash for details) and the first two ALM Ranger sessions taking place at TechReady.

We got great feedback for the Quick Reference project, which Charles Sterling “Chuck” will be taking to the team for consideration. Keep candid feedback rolling in, because we need “your” thoughts and suggestions to continuously improve our deliverables. Brian Blackman delivered a great chat explaining the evolution of Ruck and how the ALM Rangers are dog fooding the latest tools, especially the Team Foundation Service.

Take note of tomorrow’s ALM Ranger sessions, highlighted in yellow, ~~struck through~~ indicates that session has been delivered:

DEV329 * : Learning the new source code management (SCM) features of Visual Studio 11
DEV353 * : Beyond BRDLite
DEVCT202 * : How to land ALM Assessments by the customers
~~DEVCT203 * : Quick References~~
DEVCT301 * : Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance(ABE)
DEVCT302 * : VM Factory
DEVCT303 * : TFS Upgrade Guidance
DEVCT306 * : Team Foundation Server Project Planning
DEVCT307 * : Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guidance
DEVCT309 * : Test Release Management Guidance
~~DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure~~
DEVCT313 * : Practical Kanban Guidance

We are looking at a VERY busy day for tomorrow

Good news is that I have been able to start handing our the t-shirts I organized for my personal ALM Ranger champions. The following t-shirts have been distributed so far:

Finally, the usual pictures …

	The search for more new beers continues … last night I enjoyed this Hefeweizen, which was really, really nice!
	Photos from the DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure session.
	Photos from the DEVCT203 * : Quick References session.

See you tomorrow

Visual Studio ALM Rangers Transparency – Clarifying the processes: Projects (Part 1)

Willy-P. Schaub — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:42:31 GMT

This post is primarily intended for all Visual Studio ALM Rangers, serving as a reference point that is literally accessible anywhere in the world. It should, however, be interesting for anyone in the community who interacts with ALM Ranger teams or uses ALM Ranger solutions.

ACTION: I need “you” to give us candid feedback, so that we can make “your” ALM Rangers experience a productive and fun experience!

IMPORTANT NOTE: The dashboard being discussed is only accessible by ALM Rangers. We are, however, trying to be transparent with our discussions and would also value your feedback if you are not (yet) an ALM Ranger.

Most importantly, why are we making changes?

Anyone who joined the ALM Rangers and has “hit the ground running” will realize that the “ramp-up” appears like the Swiss Alps or the Rockies out of nowhere. While our Wiki has served us well, explosive growth and continuous polishing of processes and infrastructure has resulted in a web of information.

Here are some common thoughts that have run through many of our minds:

Where do I start?
What is expected of me?
What should I be focusing on?
Perhaps the best is to sit back and wait to get the magic instructions?
… there is worse, which is best deleted from this post :)

The infrastructure workgroup consisting of seven non-MSFT ALM Rangers and one MSFT ALM Ranger have been discussing and experimenting with many ideas to reduce the noise, bring back razor-sharp focus and allow the ALM Rangers to invest their precious and scarce spare time in projects, not looking for information.

The ALM Rangers dashboard has, since yesterday, got a new experimental look-and-feel. To re-iterate … we need your candid feedback to determine if this experiment is worth pursuing.

Our Dashboard has a new (Metro-style) Experiment #1

As shown above, our dashboard has a new Metro-style look and feel. We are planning to create up to (and no more) than seven tiles, which are intended for the ALM Rangers to take quick action or to zoom into a specific ALM Rangers process topic.

A small joke, that has probably gone unnoticed on our portal to most. There is no place like 127.0.0.1 … Home :)
Do you have a question, an issue, an impediment or simply want to chat to the Support Team? If yes, click on the HELP tile.
Do you want to understand what your responsibilities are as part of an ALM Ranger project or understand the project flow? If yes, click on PROJECT tile.

PROJECT tile –> PROJECT quick reference sheet – Experiment #2

When you click on the PROJECT tile you are beamed over to our next experiment, for which we do not yet have a name. Quick reference sheet, quick reference poster, desk sheet and other terms are raising their heads in discussions. Perhaps you have a cool name?

Note that the diagram & information below has not been reviewed and is missing information (*TBD* = to be defined). It should, however, give you an idea of what we are trying to achieve. For the visual ALM Rangers, like myself, we have the diagram and information on the project stakeholders and their roles.

Stepping through the PROJECT sheet

The bi-annual submit your ideas, then vote on top 20 and then stack rank the overall top 20 process, which was very labour intensive, is gone. We are using a UserVoice forum where ALM Rangers submit ideas and vote throughout the year and at any given instance, we can peek in and see what the top issues and ideas are. By the way, the (currently) top three ideas for future ALM Ranger projects are:
To submit an idea or vote on existing ideas, click the URL. Simple.
Whenever the ALM Rangers are ready for more projects, the stakeholders get together and triage the ideas from the ALM Ranger community and the fires from the product group. Trying get synergy between these two worlds was discussed in Program Management – Are some of the ALM Rangers Symbiotic PM’s?.
The Epics (killer features) for the selected projects are then defined by the stakeholders, whereby the Epics are owned by the Product Owner.
The project is then started in a “kick-off” meeting which all ALM Rangers can (should) attend to understand the scope, the intent and to make a decision whether the project is suitable as their next adventure.
The first few days/weeks are typically invested in infrastructure, “Ruck” and technology training to get everyone into the same movie.
You can then click (simple) and zoom into the relevant project type, whereby we are currently working on sheets for Guidance and for Tooling projects. See next blog post :)
Once we “ship” a project, we get together for a project post-mortem to learn, to adapt and to decide whether we need another version of the project. If yes, go to step 9.
Project are not automatically restarted. You need to raise another idea in UserVoice and ensure that the ALM Rangers community votes for your idea … if not, the project goes into maintenance mode and is eventually retired.
The sheet also summarises the core responsibilities of the Project Lead, the Project Owner, the Program Manager (who is typically part of the support team) and the Mentor. What about the Project Member, the contributor … read about it in the next associated blog post.
Clicking on the Guidance Project – Process & Checklist hyperlink, or on the GUIDANCE tile, will take you to our next topic, which we will cover in Part 2 of this series.

Those that got annoyed by having to scroll up to the diagram, while reading the notes, should have seen the value of consolidating the visual diagram, core information and stakeholder responsibilities on one single sheet of paper, or this case vPaper.

What do you think"? Add your thoughts as comments or email me direct.

See you soon.

TechReady 14 Report … T-1 days and getting nervous

Willy-P. Schaub — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:33:29 GMT

Continued from TechReady 14 Report … T-3 days and a going back to the future, we have completed the second and third day of the Windows Azure exploration and( in parallel) last-minute preparations for the TechReady event.

More pictures snapped during the day …

	I really love the variety of beers in Northern America :)
	Walk to building #37 from the Homestead … beautiful campus!
	A few snapshots from building #41 … perhaps they explain why I call #41 the battle star :) William, I just LOVE your office
	The left photo was taken from #41, and shows #37 in the background. The right photo is taken from #37, looking back #41. Shows a small portion of the huge Microsoft campus in Redmond.
	Lastly a photo taken at the technical training, showing Rob Jarratt enjoying a typical developer lunch … food in a box, two coffees and 99.999% focus on the laptop :)

Take note of tomorrow’s ALM Ranger sessions, highlighted in yellow:

DEV329 * : Learning the new source code management (SCM) features of Visual Studio 11
DEV353 * : Beyond BRDLite
DEVCT202 * : How to land ALM Assessments by the customers
DEVCT203 * : Quick References
DEVCT301 * : Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance(ABE)
DEVCT302 * : VM Factory
DEVCT303 * : TFS Upgrade Guidance
DEVCT306 * : Team Foundation Server Project Planning
DEVCT307 * : Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guidance
DEVCT309 * : Test Release Management Guidance
DEVCT310 * : Ruck, Scrum, and using TFS on Windows Azure
DEVCT313 * : Practical Kanban Guidance

Final thoughts on Windows Azure, based on the past three days, will be published in a separate blog post once my brain has settled down after the information overload and subsequent dust storms

TechReady 14 Report … T-3 days and a going back to the future

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:16:03 GMT

The TechReady event is an internal Microsoft event, so I cannot cover any of the event content. However, I can try to capture the vibe and the activities by the ALM Rangers highlighting the bridging, collaboration and sheer passion that the Rangers community is pouring into this event.

My agenda for the next three days is Windows Azure development and trying to clarify the era of the “cloud”. Go to http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ for a good starting point and a free trial of this exciting?!? technology.

Pictures taken today …

	A peek into Charles Sterling “Chuck” ‘s cave @ 1AM is always a great welcome to #41 … I love his artwork
	Wow, the skeleton is back Guess we have to go through this exercise again one day This is why working for DevX Customer and Project Management team is fun :)
	Those who worked on the OMB project down in Cape Town many, many moons ago will realise why I felt like “back to the future” over lunchtime. Martin, Charles and Peter, thank you for taking the time for the lunch chat and as always, I really enjoyed you guys debating
	The blue sky over Redmond is phenomenal and a pleasant change to the previous snowstorm and the frequent liquid sun. Hope we can fuel up with more sun tomorrow.

… now to catch-up the backlog and get some early sleep after 37 hours without sleep

Introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers – William Salazar

Willy-P. Schaub — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:08:50 GMT

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers introductions. See An index to all Rangers covered on this blog for more details.

Who you are?

William H. Salazar, Director, ALM Practice – Neudesic

What makes you “tick”?

I have a passion for ALM and firmly believe it revolutionizes the traditional approach to software development. More ALM means = better quality software= more successful projects = reduced IT costs = Happy Customers!

Where do you live?

I live in Orange County, CA which is located an hour south of Los Angeles.

Where is the place you call home?

I grew up on the East Coast in New Jersey but moved to Southern California in 1986. I consider SoCal my home – it’s where my family is and I love the sunny weather.

Why are you active in the Rangers program?

The ALM Rangers team is a terrific program to promote the best use of the Microsoft’s development platform. I am a big evangelist of the Microsoft development tools in particular the ALM tools. The Rangers fill technical gaps, influence the product, and create a “ripple effect” of ALM evangelists in not only Microsoft, but our customers as well.

What is the best Rangers project you worked in and why?

I have been a review on several Ranger projects in my previous role as a Developer TS with Microsoft DPE. The most rewarding has been the TFS4Word Plug-In. I hope to get more deeply involved know that I am in the trenches actually working with TFS deployments versus evangelism

Blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/wsalazar

AIT TeamSystemPro Team has released a new version of our AIT Dependency Manager to the Community

Willy-P. Schaub — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:08:23 GMT

The AIT TeamSystemPro Team has released a new version of our AIT Dependency Manager on VS Gallery: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/92a6416d-fc18-4b5b-9b66-fba7af728984

The latest release includes the following features:

Free Visual Studio 2010 extension
IntelliSense-Support for Xml-dependency definitions
SourceControl provider: Map source control paths to workspace
Build Result provider: Build Status and Quality and file filter support
File share provider: file filter (IncludeFilter)
Support
MSBuild support: MSBuild Task for calling Get Dependencies during local and central build
Not technology specific (supports managed code as well as native C++)
User Documentation

Changes in Version 1.0.1201.2200:

Support for RelativeOutputPath setting in SourceControl provider
Fix bug with output window focus in VSIX plugin
Added documentation menu item (“User Help”)

Contributors: Michael Ring and Sven Hubert

New version of Skype and Messenger providers … Nico Orschel was busy over Christmas :)

Willy-P. Schaub — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:35:26 GMT

During the Christmas holidays Nico published a new version of the Skype provider, a modified Messenger provider with TFS 2010 Power Tools on Codeplex https://tfscollab.codeplex.com and a new Checkin Policy.

To polish up your German, digest the following blog post: http://blog.aitgmbh.de/2012/01/10/neue-team-member-provider-vom-ait-teamsystempro-team-mit-tfs-power-tools-2010-unterstuetzung

Messenger & Skype Provider

Nico explains the difference between original Messenger provider and his version to be the support for custom mappings. It’s now possible to map a corporate E-Mail-address (Active Directory) to a private (“messenger”) mail-address. The Skype provider is, as he says, self-explaining.

Checkin Policy

The Check-In policy is designed for entering efforts and additional info into work items during check-in. It was released as part of the AIT productivity Tools on the VS Gallery (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/d127b275-b7b6-4504-b01e-58b4a010ff53 ).

Another great family of nuggets

ALM Rangers Sabbatical #4 – Focusing on the Coded UI Word Add-In

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:17:21 GMT

Every so often we invite ALM Rangers to collaborate with us on a strategic project. They are typically roped into meetings during their vacation time, which means that they are giving up their vacation time for the community

We had tree previous ALM Rangers sabbaticals:

No	Sabbatical Focus	ALM Ranger	More Information
1	Team Foundation Server Integration Tools – SharePoint Adapter	Robert MacLean	Does anyone recognize the Team System MVP, enjoying his sabbatical under the liquid sun? Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Sabbatical Report Robert’s Rangers Sabbatical coming to an end ... TFS Integration Platform – SharePoint Samples and Sabbatical Initiative “Shipped”
2	Team Foundation Server Integration Tools - Subversion Adapter	Thorsten Dralle
3	Visual Studio Coded UI Add-In	Bob Hardister	Tour of Vancouver Island with Bob during his Rangers Sabbatical Visual Studio ALM Rangers Sabbatical – Bob shares his views

The fourth is dedicated to primarily the Visual Studio Coded UI Add-In and to some extent the Word4TFS Add-in.

Here is a link to a quick video (WMV) which summarizes the definition, the objectives and the stars of the sabbatical.

Picture(s) of the Week … 12 … Beautiful Canada!

Willy-P. Schaub — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:06:38 GMT

Here is my favourite picture from the past 3 days in Whistler, where we soaked up snow, blue skies, sun and adventure

… and here are more pictures showing the sheer beauty of Canada and my wonderful family having a blast

Oh those acronyms/heteronyms … what are the ACV, ABE, ATE and CEO TLAs all about?

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:08:38 GMT

Anyone who knows me will have a smile on his face when noticing the acronyms and heteronyms that have entered the ALM Ranger ecosystem. If you are wondering about acronyms and my feeling about them, then have a peek at TLA ... why, why, why? and for heteronyms beam over to TFS Integration Platform – Moving away from the TIP Heteronym. Oh by the way, TLA = Three Lettered Acronym

Here is an acronym lookup table for the ALM Ranger project codenames, that have sprinkled new acronyms over communication:

ACRONYM	PROJECT TEAM NAME	Mug(beak)shot	RANGER PROJECT
ABE	African Black Eagle		Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guidance
ACV	African Cape Vulture		Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Planning Guide
AHE	African Hawk Eagle		Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance
AMO	African Marsh Owl		Team Foundation Server Object Model Awareness … watch the space!
ATE	African Tawny Eagle		Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance
CEO	Cape Eagle Owl		Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching & Merging Guide

Why Raptors? See Chatter … Aviation and Eagles … for those wondering where the Eagle Codenames in recent Rangers project are coming from :) for the reason behind the use of these phenomenal creatures as our project mascots. All illustrations originate from http://birdsofprey.co.za, which is a “must visit” destination when you visit Dullstroom in South-Africa.

A special thanks to the ALM Ranger leads who are supporting this great initiative and helping us to keep the alive!

ALM Rangers Visual Studio 11 Readiness – Part 5: A small peek at the upcoming Build Customization and “Tooling” Guidance (ATE)

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:42:00 GMT

This is part to an exploration of the upcoming ALM Rangers solutions for Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 11. Previous posts:

In this post we are taking a look at the Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance which also delivered a great ALPHA release:

Abstract

This Visual Studio ALM Ranger project has the primary goal of delivering scenario based and hands-on lab guidance for the customization and deployment of Team Foundation Build.

Epics

The Epics included in the guidance are:

Practical guidance and tooling to simplify the customization of Team Foundation Build
Practical guidance to use Team Foundation Build process templates to automate build and non-build scenarios in Microsoft environments
Practical guidance on using Team Foundation Build in Heterogeneous Environments
Practical guidance to enable simple and flexible deployment of applications and their data stores
Practical guidance for Activities to empower developers and build engineers
Quality hands-on labs that complement the guidance and effectively guide the user through the features
Visualization of the guidance using quick reference posters

New guidance, new custom activities and even tooling creeping into the mix

The guidance makes use of the Community TFS Build Extensions (http://tfsbuildextensions.codeplex.com) which is a collection of custom build activities, templates and other resources for Team Foundation Build. Please visit and follow this project for the latest releases. In the latest show-what-you-have, we had a phenomenal demo of a new tool which will bring a smile to many build masters and administrators.

Visit the Community TFS Build Extensions (http://tfsbuildextensions.codeplex.com) and have a look at the new TFS Build Manager tool, which will bring many, many smiles to build masters and administrators:
… read more about this tool on Jakob Ehn’s blog post here.

Michael Fourie and team, you are “rocking”! Your energy, passion and tenacious collaboration is second to none!

Picture(s) of the Week … 11

Willy-P. Schaub — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:15:46 GMT

Welcome to 2012 … I trust that everyone has had a safe and fun hyper-space jump from 2011 to 2012. Here is my favourite picture of the week, which features Boundary Bay @ around 16:00 in the afternoon at my favourite location, as the “early” night approaches. In my humble opinion, it shows the tranquillity and sheer beauty of the bay

And a few more pictures taken on the same day, just a bit earlier …

Rangers Flash - December 2011

Willy-P. Schaub — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:51:06 GMT

Projects News

Visual Studio Coded UI Microsoft Word Plug-in (VSCUG) … ready to ship after all assessments have been completed.
Word4TFS (TFSWP) … team is evaluating the latest user experience improvements, in particular with the management of templates.
Visual Studio 11 Readiness … the teams met the ALPHA review phase and are rebooting to meet the next upcoming milestones, such as the internal Microsoft TechReady 14 event and the BETA release.

These projects all delivered an ALPHA drop, which is being reviewed by the ALM Rangers and the product group:

ALM Assessment Guide

Branching and Merging Guide

Microsoft Test Manager Guide

Practical Kanban Guide

Rangers Personas and Scenarios

Requirements Engineering Guide

Team Foundation Build Customization Guide

Team Foundation Server Azure Practical Guide

Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guide

Team Foundation Server Team Project Planning Guide

Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide

Test Release Management Guide

Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guide

Visual Studio Coded UI Test Automation Guide

Visual Studio Lab Management Guide

Visual Studio Quick Reference Guide

VM Factory Guide

Other projects which are part of the “Gig:

BRDLite

Practical Ruck Guide

Call to Action for all ALM Rangers!

One thing we love is celebrating your successes. Unfortunately not being omniscient we simply don’t know about many of them. So if you have done or know of some outstanding contributions/actions please send them to Chuck and Willy to post in our internal newsletters that go to our upper management and the MVP leads.
Calling all ALM Rangers to review the Visual Studio 11 Readiness ALPHA bits. We need your help!
Update your personal contact details in the Ranger Contact Details list on the Rangers portal.

Community News

No new Rangers were mentioned on the Rangers Index this month. If you are an ALM Ranger and not yet listed on the index … why not?
Important (imminent) Dates
- Public holiday in Canada … 2 Jan 2012 In Lieu of New Year's Day
- TechReady 14 … 30 January – 3 February 2012
- Sabbatical (Michael Fourie & Bob Hardister … CodedUI) … end-January 2012
- MVP Summit 2012 … 28 February – 2 March 2012

Visual Studio Gallery and Other Bits and Pieces

Team Explorer Profile Manager … a simple system tray utility that provides the ability to launch Visual Studio 2010 and select the active Team Foundation Server and Team Project Collection (TPC) in a single mouse click … by Jeff Bramwell
Database Installation using VCDBCMD and WIX … by John Bergman
A Brazilian Videocast recorded by Silfarney Wallace Ferreira for MS Brazil about ALM with VS 2010 - Manual and Automated Testing (in Portuguese) …http://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/vstudio/hh563952

Highlights during 2011

Francisco Fagas started a tenacious localization drive of the ALM Rangers guidance, which spilled over into other languages. See Rangers Guidance Localizations … Sprechen Sie Deutsch? … ¿Habla Español? for details.
The first ALM Rangers flash is published in February with the objective of creating a monthly awareness pulse.
The ALM Rangers start a quarterly series of articles in MSDN Magazine and other magazines.

- MSDN Magazine Articles by the ALM Rangers
- Daniel Oliveira published an article in the Mundo.net magazine
We had some major releases of new tooling and guidance:
- Architecture Tooling Guidance Version 2.1 (ABE) is Available
- We have shipped … Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance
- We have shipped … Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance
We had Champion ALM Rangers who excelled in their passion for the community, their pedantic nature for technical accuracy, support for their fellow ALM Rangers throughout the year:
- External Ranger Champions 2011.1 and “the” Champion of Champions are announced!

- Bill Heys does it again … Worldwide Lead for the ALM Community within Microsoft

- (External) Visual Studio ALM Ranger Champions 2011.2 are known! Cowabunga!
- ALM Ranger Champions – Willy’s nominations!
Bob visited Vancouver Development Center and Redmond for his ALM Rangers Sabbatical.

- Tour of Vancouver Island with Bob during his Rangers Sabbatical
- Visual Studio ALM Rangers Sabbatical – Bob shares his views
ALM Rangers release their 5-year report … Visual Studio ALM Rangers – 5 Year Report … sharing the essentials.
Bijan announces and drives the Dev11 Readiness “Gig” ... the biggest and most ambitious ALM Rangers project to date. ALM Rangers, like Chris Burrows, even start reporting instances of daunting dreams J
- Visual Studio ALM Rangers recently called it a daunting but exciting adventure … what’s coming?
- Understanding our Visual Studio 11 Readiness conspiracy
The ALM Rangers embrace dog fooding with complete commitment by committing the Dev11 Readiness “Gig” to the latest and greatest technologies without any contingency plans … there is only one way … “forward”!
- Team Foundation Server on Windows Azure … Rucking along and visualizing the good, the bad and the ugly
- Why we believe in dogfooding …
Some phenomenal events were driven, attended and/or enjoyed by the ALM Rangers:
- MVP Summit 2011 … MVP2MVP2, Day 3 and 4 Pictures and
A phenomenal prize giving event organized by Chuck! And the nominees and winners are …
- TechReady 13 … T-1 days, T-0 Day 1, T+1 Day 2, T+3 Day 3-4
- Visual Studio 11 Test Drive – Another great day @ the battle star :)
Willy start his usual pondering over things @ MSFT
- Communications … common sense, challenges and objectives (mine)
- Program Management – Thinking about PM != PM and the PM role in Microsoft
- Program Management – Are some of the ALM Rangers Symbiotic PM’s?
- Have I reached a design epiphany or am I finally lost in outer orbit?
- Two events that introduce anomalies even into “Swiss” project planning

Closing Note

… A happy and safe festive season and holiday everyone!

ALM Ranger Champions – Willy’s nominations!

Willy-P. Schaub — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:48:24 GMT

We try and highlight all the outstanding contributions by ALM Rangers and regularly nominate Champions, Champion of Champions and special achievements … but unfortunately we do not know about all the phenomenal work done by the ALM Rangers behind the scenes.

I have been watching the community for a while, have asked by colleagues for input and have decided to mention a few ALM Rangers who have really gone beyond the call of duty.

Here we go, sorted alphabetically by first name:

Bijan Javidi	The creator and leader of the ALM Rangers is fighting fires, supporting, mentoring, nurturing and driving the ALM Rangers community and projects with vigour, tenacity, passion, professionalism and razor-sharp attention to detail. He is literally online 24x7 and we often wonder how much (or should that be little) sleep he needs.
Bob Hardister	Project lead of the Test Release Management Guidance (TFSTCBG) project. One of five Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness project leads who has been highlighted by Brian Blackman when asked who are the best-of-the-best project leads and supporters of the ALM Rangers dog fooding drive.
Brian Blackman	The owner, mentor and driver of Ruck … his tenacity and mentorship at all times of the day and night, his friendship and collaboration with the community is simply phenomenal. Brian is the the mentor/lead/master you want and need when going to battle in the ALM Rangers community.
Chris Burrows	Project lead of the Visual Studio Quick Reference Guidance (TFSQR) project. One of five Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness project leads who has been highlighted by Brian Blackman when asked who are the best-of-the-best project leads and supporters of the ALM Rangers dog fooding drive.
Charles Sterling “Chuck”	This blog page is not long enough to list all of “Chuck’s” qualities and contributions made to the communities around the world. The passion, commitment and endless energy he pours into the communities such as MVPs and Rangers leaves me “flabbergasted”. Chuck, thank you for being such a great community driver, colleague and friend!
Jeff Jurvis	The Rangers evangelist, custodian of the pivotal vstser group and continuous supporter and mentor of the ALM Rangers. Jeff’s precious investment of passion, know-how, guidance, leadership and support has enabled us to bring the Ranger communities closer together and quite honestly I cannot imagine a TechReady Ask The Expert without Jeff and his orange cap
Mathias Olausson	Project lead of the Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance (TFSLM) project. One of five Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness project leads who has been highlighted by Brian Blackman when asked who are the best-of-the-best project leads and supporters of the ALM Rangers dog fooding drive.
Michael Fourie	Project lead of the Build Customization Guidance (VSBCG) project and also known as “Meneer Pedantic” for his exceptional attention to detail One of five Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness project leads who has been highlighted by Brian Blackman when asked who are the best-of-the-best project leads and supporters of the ALM Rangers dog fooding drive.
Neno Loje	The master planner of events such as MVP Summit, the custodian of user friendliness, logo and UX compliance and missing links and features in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. If you are planning your next trip around the world or sabbatical to Pluto, make sure to ask Neno to assist you with the planning … he “rocks”!
Paul Meyer (VMFactory Master)	Project lead of the VM Factory Tooling and Guidance (TFSVM) project and also known as “Factory Master”. If you need to automate anything, give Paul a call! One of five Visual Studio 11 ALM Rangers Readiness project leads who has been highlighted by Brian Blackman when asked who are the best-of-the-best project leads and supporters of the ALM Rangers dog fooding drive.

I have ordered a few t-shirts, which I will be handing to these gents in a 1:1 as a tiny gesture of THANK YOU whenever our paths cross in the physical world!

ALM Rangers Visual Studio 11 Readiness – Part 4: A small peek at the upcoming Lab Management Guidance

Willy-P. Schaub — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:43:30 GMT

This is part to an exploration of the upcoming ALM Rangers solutions for Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 11. Previous posts:

In this post we are taking a look at the Lab Management Guidance which also delivered a great ALPHA release:

Abstract

Provide practical and scenario-based guidance for Visual Studio Lab Management, backed by VM Factory automation.
Codename: African Hawk Eagle (AHE)

Epics

I would like to understand the changes and impact of Dev11 on Lab Management
I would like all feedback and suggestions from the community on v1 addressed

A phenomenal new Hands-on Lab

I had the privilege of reviewing a new hands-on lab in which you will learn how Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management can be used as the infrastructure for a build, deploy and test process. Visual Studio 11 enhance the product by providing so called Standard Lab Environments, which allows you to set up Lab Management labs without minimum additional infrastructure … this is a great new feature and I had an environment up and running, including build, deploy and test processes in less than an hour.

Four screenshots I took during my evaluation journey …

A summary of changes to date … the team has not been idling

Built an enhanced Lab Template
Built a parallel CI Template
Guidance for the enhanced and parallel CI templates
Lab Management build activities (10 new activities!)
Created a new Quick Reference Poster for Lab Management 11
Created a demo video for the Parallel CI template
Hands on lab (in time for TR14) on build-deploy-test with TFS11 standard environments
Updated the v1 guide for VS/TFS11
Lot of fun and interesting meeting and discussions

Soon to come

SharePoint deployment guidance
SQL Server deployment guidance

Great stuff Mathias Olausson and team!

A happy and safe festive season and holiday everyone!

Willy-P. Schaub — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:29:35 GMT

… the happy gang in Dullstroom in 2008

As we get ready to unplug ourselves from the digital world, we would like to thank everyone who has been part of our family journey, the phenomenal Visual Studio ALM Rangers and all the wonderful colleagues within and outside of Microsoft in 2011.

We wish you and your families a happy and safe festive season and a wonderful holiday!

See you all, safe and sound, in 2012!