Randy Miller's Blog : MSF for Agile Software Development Errata

MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Version 4.1 Available

RandyMiller — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:02:00 GMT

Yesterday, we released brand new versions of MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for CMMI Process Improvement. These new versions create the first commercial agile and CMMI-based software development processes with support for database unit tests and refactoring. The release of these processes coincided with the release of our tooling support for these practices, Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals. These new versions also contain several bug fixes and clarifications.

If you are using the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, here are the instructions to update the MSF versions.

Instructions

If you want to view the guidance

1. Download and extract the contents of the zip file to your local machine. (select Use folder names).

2. In the extracted files, review the Readme.

3. To view the content, open \Process Guidance\ProcessGuidance.html.

If you want to update the guidance in a process template

1. Download and extract the contents of the zip file to your local machine.

2. If required, customize process guidance using instructions available at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730855(VS.80).aspx.

3. Download the process template you want to update guidance on from your TFS server to your local machine.

4. Replace “Windows SharePoint Services” folder in the process template you downloaded from TFS with the one you obtained from the web download.

5. Upload the updated process template back to TFS.

6. When you create a new project using this updated process template, the portal will show the updated guidance.

If you want to replace the guidance already on the SharePoint server

1. Download and extract the contents of the zip file to your local machine.

2. Go to the home page of your project portal.

3. Click Documents and Lists, and then "Document Libraries" in the left menu.

4. Replace all files and folders in the following Document Libraries on SharePoint site from their corresponding folders under "Windows SharePoint Services" folder in the process guidance you downloaded.

1. Project Management

2. Requirements

3. Security

4. Test

5. For the "Process Guidance" Document Library, replace the following files and folders with the new content

1. Folder – Supporting Files along with all the subfolders and files

2. File – ProcessGuidance.html

3. File – version.txt

Changes to MSF for Agile Software Development

RandyMiller — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:57:00 GMT

A common question that I get is "What has changed in the latest version of MSF for Agile Software Development?" There are two reasons that this question is asked. First, people want to know why they should update their projects and secondly, they want to know what files have changed. This blog entry will attempt to answer both questions.

To start, we have tried to clarify a number of the concepts that were being misconstrued by poor wording or organization of the content. These concepts include the role of the Project Manager in iteration planning (they are a facilitator) and the use of Test Driven Development (earlier versions slated this as optional).

As for which files have change, the answer is all of them have. However, only a dozen or so have changed in a meaningful way. The rest have the new copyright and release information. Choose from the list below based upon you needs. I recommend adding files for the Plan an Iteration Collaboration. Check out the files from your project portal and replace them with these new ones.

Plan an Iteration Collaboration

architect.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

architect_plananiteration.htm (new file - clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

architect_showall.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

businessanalyst.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

businessanalyst_plananiteration.htm (new file - clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

businessanalyst_showall.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

developer.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

developer_plananiteration.htm (new file - clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

developer_showall.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

dividequalityofservicerequirementsintotasks.htm (clarified how the division gets done)

dividescenariosintotasks.htm (clarified how the division gets done)

plananiteration.htm (new collaborations)

tester.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

tester_plananiteration.htm (new file - clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

tester_showall.htm (clarified collaboration on plan an iteration workstream)

workstreamsindex.htm

Test Driven Development

fixabug.htm

Broken Link Fixes

brainstormqualityofservicerequirements.htm (fixed broken link to ‘howto’)

brainstormscenarios.htm (fixed broken link to ‘howto’)

buildaproduct.htm (fixed broken link to ‘Team Build’)

closeabug.htm (removed extraneous links)

createorupdateunittest.htm (add link to TDD information)

developlefestylesnapshot.htm (fixed broken link to ‘howto’)

fixabuild.htm (fixed broken link to team build)

mitigatearisk.htm (removed link to MSF home page)

qualityofservicerequirementlist.htm (fixed broken link to actual work products)

reviewobjectives.htm (fixed broken link to scenario list)

scenariolist.htm (fixed broken link to actual work products)

selectandrunatestcase.htm (added link to test case management)

startabuild.htm (fixed a broken link to help system)

testaqualityofservicerequirement.htm (added link to test case management)

testascenario.htm (added link to test case management)

Added Queries

cycles_dailybuild.htm (added queries for this area)

cycles_iteration.htm (added queries for this area)

projectmanager_guideiteration.htm (added queries for this area)

projectmanager_plananiteration.htm (added queries for this area)

projectmanager_showall.htm (added queries for this area)

tracks_build.htm (added queries for this area)

Additions to the glossary

glossary.htm

New Mindsets

mindsets.htm

principles.htm

teammodel.htm

Errata: Divide Scenarios into Tasks

RandyMiller — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:24:00 GMT

Activity: Divide Scenarios into Tasks

Project Manager

Plan an Iteration

Task

Participating Roles

Responsible:

Project Manager

Consult:

Architect

Developer

Tester

Overview

Entry Criteria

Dependencies:

The scheduled scenario description is written and storyboarded if necessary.

Sub-Activities


1	Gather the Team	Gather the architects, developers, and testers who will be working on or impacted by this scenario. The project manager facilitates this brief meeting or email discussion and records the tasks.
2	Identify Architecture and Development Tasks	Begin where the scenario differs from previously implemented scenarios and follow the control path through the system. Consider user visible features, changes to the underlying infrastructure or data structures and items that have architectural impact. Identify how system components are affected when implementing the planned scenario. Ensure that the architecture will be able to handle the scenario. If architectural changes are necessary, create the roadmap and tasks for refactoring the architecture to the new state. Split the scenario if necessary. Create a new development task for each major area of the system impacted by the scenario. For each task, describe the new or changed functionality. Keep the tasks broad enough to allow design to emerge but focused enough that a single person could complete them in one to three days. Group low level changes that are logically related into higher level tasks. Further divide high level changes and additions into lower level tasks if they are broad. Review the set of tasks to ensure that they adequately address the scenario.
3	Choose Architecture and Development Tasks	Architects and developers choose their own tasks. Check to make sure all architecture and development tasks are chosen.
4	Reassign Scenario to a Developer	Reassign the scenario to one of the developers who owns development tasks for that scenario. This developer’s job is to test the end-to-end integration of the development tasks.
5	Create Test Tasks	Update the test approach document for the iteration, filling in the test data and other sections. Create a set of tasks to create the necessary test cases to achieve the goal of the iteration. Determine which tests can be automated and added to the iteration tests. The iteration tests run after the build verification tests.
6	Choose the Test Tasks	Allow the testers to choose their test tasks. Check to make sure all test tasks are chosen.

Exit Criteria

	The initial iteration plan contains tasks describing all work necessary to fulfill all the scenarios scheduled for the iteration.
	All tasks created during the brief meeting are chosen.