Rob Caron : Team System

Follow Team System on Twitter

Rob Caron — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:21:00 GMT

You can now follow Team System on Twitter: http://twitter.com/microsoftvsts

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Free Webinar on Managing a Multi-Team Project in Visual Studio Team System

Rob Caron — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:44:11 GMT

I used to get questions about using Team System to manage multiple teams working on the same project. Next month (10/16), NetObjectives is holding a webinar (Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System) on that very topic:

Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System

Using the Implementing Agile Development Process Template for Visual Studio Team System 2008

Many Agile/Scrum projects have more than one team, but few VSTS Process Templates address the issues of managing multiple teams pulling from the same product backlog. The Implementing Agile Development process template provides the data, reporting and team communication features to manage the multiple team project successfully.

This webinar will discuss and demonstrate the following features of the IAD process template.

Work Item Support for multiple teams.

Team communication features including the Agile Team SharePoint sub-site and the Agile Team blog feature.

Agile Team reporting.

The webinar will also provide the basic information of how to download and install the IAD process template.

Attendees should have a basic understanding of the operation of VSTS/TFS.

Agenda

10:00 am - 11:00 AM PDT (1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT)
webinar itself
11:00 am - 12:00 PM PDT (2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT)
Q&A follow up (details given in webinar).

Webinar: Managing a Multiple Team Project in Visual Studio Team System | NetObjectives

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Mickey Gousset - Visual Studio Magazine Online

Rob Caron — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:39:15 GMT

My friend and Team System MVP, Mickey Gousset of Notion Solutions, is now co-authoring with Jeff Levinson the "Inside VSTS" column for Visual Studio Magazine Online. Congratulations, Mickey!

I would like to introduce everyone to a new author for this column -- Mickey Gousset. Mickey is a fellow Team System MVP, co-author of the book Professional Team Foundation Server from Wrox and an all-around great guy. Mickey and I will be alternating the authoring of this column. Enjoy! --Jeff Levinson

Read his first column on "The Red X of Death":

Can't access the Documents or Reports folder? Mickey shows you the two most common causes for this problem and how to correct them.

Visual Studio Magazine Online | Inside VSTS: The Red X of Death

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Team System Preconference Course at PDC 2008

Rob Caron — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:58:13 GMT

If you're new to Team System, or if you're ready to use Team Foundation Server for more than version control, you should consider attending the Team System preconference course taught by Brian Randell at PDC 2008: Get More Out of Visual Studio Team System 2008. Brian has been in and around Team System since the early days, and he knows his way around Team Foundation Server.

Get More Out of Visual Studio Team System 2008

Presenter(s): Brian Randell

This preconference will focus both on implementing best practices and avoiding worst practices when working with Team Foundation Server and the suite of client tools. Throughout the day you will cover end-to-end life cycle management. Begin with guidance on defining your team project, source code control, and project classifications system, tips for customizing your process templates and using work items to drive your teams progress. From there you will learn effective techniques for getting your builds set up and running, using quality practices and tools including unit testing, web testing, test publication, profiling and load testing. We close by covering how to move forward once a major milestone is complete. This session assumes familiarity with Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Client Tools; each section of the session will provide practical guidance so that you are getting the most of VSTS and you leave prepared for changes coming in future releases of Team System.

About the presenter(s):

Brian A. Randell is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, LLC. For over 20 years, Brian has been building software solutions and educating his fellow developers. Brian spends his time teaching Microsoft technologies to developers, working with new and emerging technologies like Visual Studio Team System 2008, and consulting worldwide for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, state and local governments, and small businesses. Brian enjoys helping people get the most out of their software. He does this through training for Pluralsight, and speaking at events such as VSLive!, Tech•Ed, and the PDC. In addition, Brian shares through the written word. Brian currently writes the Team System column for MSDN Magazine. He is the author and lead instructor of Pluralsight’s Applied Team System and Applied Windows SharePoint Services courses. You can reach Brian via his blog at http://www.mcwtech.com/cs/blogs/brianr.

PDC2008 | Agenda | Pre-Conference

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Can Process Improvement and ALM Really Improve Your Business?

Rob Caron — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:42:34 GMT

Andrew Cook just tipped me to this webcast coming later this month. It's always refreshing to see a webcast presented by someone outside of Microsoft. It feels less like an echo chamber, and I'm more likely to hear something I haven't already heard. I'm registered.

The term Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is attracting significant attention from tool vendors, research groups, and industry thought leaders. Although proactively managing your application throughout the life cycle seems to be a simple concept, in fact there are seemingly innumerable ways to accomplish the goals of ALM. Coordinated toolsets, the Capability Maturity Model, innovative modeling techniques, and commercially available processes all provide pieces of this frequently misunderstood and often complex puzzle. In this webcast, we discuss the basic tenets of Application Lifecycle Management, describe what kinds of projects benefit most from ALM, explain how the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System supports this initiative, and examine why a repeatable, pragmatic software development process cannot be overlooked when implementing ALM.

Presenter: William F. Nazzaro, Chief Technical Officer, IconATG, Inc.

William F. Nazzaro is the vice president and chief technical officer of IconATG and has over 18 years of success in delivering enterprise software solutions for Fortune 100 companies. He has provided unparalleled services in organizational and project assessments, use-case training, use-case modeling, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) adoption, Unified Process development, Agile Scrum development, service-oriented architecture, application architecture, project mentoring, and technical curriculum development and delivery. William has an accessible and down-to-earth speaking style, and he has provided in-depth talks on service-oriented architecture, Unified Process development, software development life cycle, agility, use-case modeling, and object technology.

Momentum Webcast: Can Process Improvement and Application Lifecycle Management Really Improve Your Business? (Level 100)

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APLN Seattle Leadership Summit - July 17 and 18

Rob Caron — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:07:55 GMT

If you're going to be in the Seattle area next month, or need a reason to be, consider attending the APLN Seattle Leadership Summit at the Edgewater Hotel on July 17 & 18. The theme this year is, “Advancing the Agile Enterprise.”

The APLN Leadership Summit include the exploration of agile leadership of projects and enterprises. Under the guidance of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), the summit objectives are to connect, develop, and support great project and enterprise leaders.

There will be two leadership keynotes from:

Lisa Haneberg, author of seven books including 10 Steps to Be a Successful Manager and Two Weeks to a Breakthrough.
John Yuzdepski, a partner at Management Concepts LLC specializing in product transitions and commercialization of new technology and a veteran of the mobile communications industry.

Topics and experts include:

Collaboration Games by Luke Hohmann and Allan Shalloway
Kanban by David Anderson and Corey Ladas
Scrum by Brent Barton and Lance Young
Getting Started with Agile by Mitch Lacey and Julie Chickering
Writing Agile Contracts by Bruce Eckfeldt and Jim Benson
Agile Program Management by Mike Griffiths and Mike Cottmeyer
Real Option Theory by Chris Matts and Olav Maassen
Agile User Experience by Arlen Bankston and Jeff Patten

In addition, Dale Christian, CIO of Avanade, will head a panel of senior leaders discussing their experiences.

As you may recall, David Anderson was a member of the original Team System product team (now a principal at Modus Cooperandi) and made a number of valuable contributions, including MSF for CMMI Process Improvement. He is also an excellent author and blogger.

This should be an educational two days, and the best time to visit Seattle is July and August.

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Updated: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison (v1.04)

Rob Caron — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:58:00 GMT

Okay, another update (v1.04) to the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison is now available {NOTE: This product comparison is no longer available on the Visual Studio site}. In this revision, I updated the Code Quality Tools section to better reflect the testing features that are now available in Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, as well as some error corrections. I'm hoping this will be the last update for a bit; however, I appreciate any bug reports.

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New Team System Blogfather!

Rob Caron — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:37:00 GMT

Charles Sterling, who spent most of this decade in Australia as a developer evangelist, recently moved back to Redmond. He's now on the Team System team working full-time on the kinds of things I did in my spare time when I was there. As he rapidly ramps up his activity in the Team System area, I'm officially passing the "Team System Blogfather" title over to him. He has a ton of energy and enthusiasm for Team System. He'll also be the driving force behind the Team System developer centers on MSDN. Since he's working on this stuff as his day job, I'm certain he'll eclipse my efforts in short order.

Good luck, Chuck!

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Updated: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide

Rob Caron — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:34:00 GMT

The first major revision of the Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide is live.

Here's where you can find it: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison. {NOTE: This product comparison is no longer available on the Visual Studio site.}

Here are some downloadable versions (DOCX/XPS/PDF): Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison downloads.

This is version 1.02 (version number now included on Web page and in downloads). Here is a version with revision history included if you have an earlier version and want to know what changed: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison v1.02 Revisions.

Thanks to Jean-Luc David for being online late and willing to help with publication, and thanks to Dan Fernandez for finding many of the errors fixed in this release.

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Global Bank: A Scenario for Visual Studio Team System 2008

Rob Caron — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:28:07 GMT

The final article of the Global Bank: A Scenario for Visual Studio Team System 2008 series is now available.

From the overview:

Are you wondering what you can do in Visual Studio Team System 2008 that you couldn’t do before? We’ve created a series of articles to show you. In this series, we'll explore how Global Bank uses Visual Studio Team System 2008 to help design and implement a new online service.

Global Bank: Adding New Services to an Existing Web Site: The first article in the series. Follow along as Alan creates the list of requirements for the new service and Ken uses these requirements to design the system.

Global Bank: Updating an Existing Database to Support New Services: The second article in the series. See how Alice implements the new table and stored procedure that are required for the new service.

Global Bank: Coding the New Service, Part 1: The third article in the series. Follow along as Martin begins coding, debugging, and testing the new service.

Global Bank: Coding the New Service, Part 2: The fourth article in the series. See how Martin uses unit testing and profiling to test the accuracy and robustness of his code.

Global Bank: Testing the New Service and Fixing Issues: The final article in the series. Follow along as Ellen uses web tests and load tests to check the performance of the new service.

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More Team System User Education on Scenario Topics

Rob Caron — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:34:12 GMT

Head over to the Team System User Education blog to get a look at a sample of what David Chesnut is calling scenario topics (from an earlier post: Team System User Education on Scenario Topics), and be sure to give him some feedback with your thoughts.

Sample Help File for Scenario Topics

If you have trouble viewing the CHM file, see: Viewing Downloaded CHM Files.

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New Web Site: Microsoft Tester Center

Rob Caron — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:39:00 GMT

Today, we launched a new site on MSDN - the Microsoft Tester Center!

The Microsoft Tester Center showcases the test discipline as an integral part of the application lifecycle, describes test roles and responsibilities, and promotes the test investments required to deliver high-quality software.

Source: Tester Center Home

The aim of the Microsoft Tester Center is to provide a place for software testers to share their experiences and best practices, and to shed some light on how we do software testing at Microsoft. Testers from across Microsoft have contributed content for this site, and the first couple of articles are now available in the MSDN Library:

Visual Studio Team System embraces the entire software development team. Software testers are one of the key benefactors of this expansion in the Visual Studio product line. While Team System provides the tools software testers need to be successful, this site will help provide some of the knowledge testers need to make the best use of those tools and to cultivate the software testing community.

The team that is working on this site is eager to receive your feedback and contributions:

Contribute to This Site: Submit your articles, book reviews, videos and more. Email us to find out more.

Submit Your Feedback: Send email.

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Visual Studio Team System Resource Center

Rob Caron — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:52:09 GMT

Deitel.com just launched a Visual Studio Team System Resource Center.

You may be familiar with many of their other resource centers, or one of their many programming textbooks. If you don't already, you should subscribe to their newsletter to keep up on all of the stuff they're doing.

Welcome to the Visual Studio Team System Resource Center. "Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System (VSTS) is a collection of tightly-integrated software development tools that change the way software development teams work together. With Visual Studio Team System, organizations can reduce software development complexity, facilitate collaboration among all team members, accelerate development time, improve predictability and reliability of the development process, and customize and extend Visual Studio Team System with their own internal tools, process frameworks, and supplemental partner products." Start your search here for the latest Visual Studio Team System articles, downloads, tutorials, videos, forums, blogs and more.

Source: Visual Studio Team System Resource Center

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Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Rob Caron — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:09:00 GMT

The final release of Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server is now available for download from CodePlex! I'm really, really excited about this guide. Any team that is adopting Team Foundation Server (or is wisely considering to do so) should read this guide. Enjoy.

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Visual Studio Team System Code Name "Rosario" August CTP VPC Instructions

Rob Caron — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:51:00 GMT

The August CTP is now available for Visual Studio Team System code name "Rosario." For those who skidded right on past the instructions on the download page, here they are again:

To install, follow these instructions in the exact order shown.

Download and install Virtual PC 2004 SP1 (or Virtual Server 2005 R2 or Virtual PC 2007).
Download the Base image (one-time only): Save the self-extracting base image VSCTPBase.exe and extract to a folder on your computer.
Click the Download button on this page to download all parts of the Visual Studio code name Rosario August 2007 CTP. The first part is a self-extracting EXE and will prompt for the other parts.
Click on the self extracting Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS_9PartsTotal.part01.exe to extract two files (Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS.vhd and Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS.vmc ) to the same folder as the base. You will need to read and accept the EULA before extraction proceeds.
Launch the Virtual PC Console using Start|Programs|Microsoft Virtual PC.
Click the New button to launch the “New Virtual Machine Wizard”.
Navigate to the Options page and select "Add An existing Virtual Machine" radio button.
Click the Browse button and navigate to the location you extracted the files to and select the Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS.vmc image.
You will be prompted for the location of the base image and you should point to the Base01.vhd that you extracted earlier and click OK.
Clear the “When I finish, open settings” checkbox and click OK.
Select the new image entry, Aug2007RosarioCTP_TFSVSTS, and click Start.
To logon to the machine, click on Action Menu (Shortcut: Right Alt+Del) on the VPC console and use the credentials above. Note: Three user accounts have been created for Team Foundation Server. (Please refer to the the installation guide mentioned above, TFSInstall.chm, under User Accounts Required for Team Foundation Server Setup section for more details.)

Username: TFSSETUP, password: tfssetup
Username: TFSSERVICE, password: tfsservice
Username: TFSREPORT, password: tfsreport

Be sure to go grab the white paper and prerelease documentation, too.

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