Here’s your thought for the day:
Think of Team Foundation Build build agents like shared, network printers in a large enterprise. Each printer can be assigned one or more tags such as laser, ink, color, duplex, or stapler. When it comes time for a user to print a document in the enterprise, they can require duplex laser color and the printing software will find an available printer that meets the criteria and send the job there.
Likewise, each build agent can be assigned one or more tags such as .NET4.0, .NET4.5, SQL 2012, Telerik, VB6, or VFP. When it comes time for an application to be built, the build controller will find an available agent that meets the criteria and send the job there. The only difference is that there is no walking up two flights of stairs to get your binaries.
Like most Microsoft ALM geeks, I downloaded the Visual Studio 11 ALM VM the day Brian Keller posted it. One of the first things I realized is that the VM is for 64-bit operating systems only. This is because Team Foundation Server 11 only runs on a 64-bit server OS. This is no problem for me, because I have Hyper-V running here at my desk and I can run 64-bit VMs just fine. But, if you are one of the unfortunate many who do not have a W2K8 64-bit environment sitting around, then this blog post is for you (maybe). VirtualBox to the rescue VirtualBox is Oracle’s virtualization product. It’s freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU GPL. Personally, I'm a Hyper-V guy myself having the occasional fling with Virtual PC; but, VirtualBox has one feature that really seals the deal for me – and it’s very handy in this specific situation: it supports 64-bit guest operating systems, running on 32-bit host operating systems! Yes, you read that correctly. It’s magic. Important: You need to make sure that the PC you are running the 32-bit host hardware is x64 capable and supports hardware virtualization. You will need to verify that your system supports this and possibly enable it in the BIOS. Microsoft even has a tool you can use to help verify. Steps to follow - Verify that your 32-bit computer supports hardware virtualization.
- Download and install the latest version of VirtualBox (for Windows hosts).
- Download and expand the Visual Studio 11 VM to a safe location.
- Launch VirtualBox and create a new VM, giving it a friendly name and selecting Windows 2008 (64 bit) as the OS.
- Give the VM adequate memory (mine seems to run fine with 2560mb and that leaves a ~1.5gb available for the host on 4gb machines)
- Uncheck the Start-up Disk option (we’ll come back to this in a bit).
- Finish creating the VM.
- In the VM Manager, select the new VM and click Settings.
- In the Storage section, right-click on the SATA Controller and select Remove Controller.
- Right-click on the IDE Controller and select Add Hard Disk. Why did we do these last two steps?
- Select Choose existing disk and navigate to the .VHD file you expanded in step 3.
- Save your settings and then start, login, use, and love the VM!
Making it better There are some other steps you may want to do in order to make using the VM a more enjoyable experience. Personally, I would … - Enable additional processors (if running on a multi-processor machine)
- Disable Audio (unless you really need it)
- Modify Network settings to ensure Internet connectivity
- Activate Windows
- Install VirtualBox Guest Additions
- Stop and Disable the various Hyper-V services (Data Exchange, Guest Shutdown, Heartbeat, Time Synchronization, and Volume Shadow Copy Requestor)
- Reboot and create a snapshot
For more information, check out the article Converting Hyper-V guest systems to VirtualBox as well as How to use VirtualBox for Hyper-V Preconfigured VM Images.
There are many, many new and cool technologies and products being introduced, announced, and launched at //Build this week. One of these is close to my heart: the Visual Studio Team Foundation Service Preview which is available at tfspreview.com. This preview is more than just a “rent-a-source-control-repository” in the sky, but it’s a full ALM tool that provides collaboration services for development teams of any size, including the new Agile project management tools. For more information, including several helpful tutorial videos (that I created), read Martin Woodward’s blog post.
While it’s possible for a Scrum team to use the MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 process template to implement Scrum, it makes more sense to use the Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template, as it was created specifically for teams using Scrum. That said, I wanted to share with you an objective side-by-side comparison of the two templates: | Comparison | MSF/Agile 5.0 | VS Scrum 1.0 | | Effective version | 3.0 | 1.0 | | Can implement Scrum? | Yes | Yes | | Uses Scrum terminology? | No | Yes | | Number of work item types | 6 | 7 | | Leverages work item hierarchies? | Yes | Yes | | Track Sprint dates, goal, and retrospective notes? | No | Yes | | Has Excel planning workbooks? | Yes | No | | Has Excel reports? | Yes | No | | Has sample/template documents? | Yes | No | | Number of .RDL reports | 16 | 7 | | Project portal dashboard(s) | Task Burndown, Burn Rate | Release Burndown | | Has process guidance? | Yes | Yes | | Available “out of the box”? | Yes | No | | Supported by Microsoft? | Yes | Yes |
UPDATE (3 June 2011): Watched the recorded presentation on Channel 9. I finally got my (final) Emergent Architecture (DPR308) presentation posted. I had a couple of people tell me that the deck they downloaded from the TechEd Session Documents page was an old one. If you missed the presentation, you can watch the video online and see just where you are on the graph below! 
Files: Presentation (7mb)
As you know Team Foundation Server 2010 supports most (but not all) Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) activities as the busy diagram below (from InCycle Software) suggests: 
In addition to identifying the few gaps in ALM support (and ways to plug them), there are a couple of other myths that we busted last week at TechEd during my interactive presentation titled “Would You, Could You with TFS”: 
It was a fun presentation with introductions and demonstrations of five wonderful Visual Studio Industry Partners (VSIP) products that extend Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. 
Files: Presentation (5mb)
I wanted to post a short video of the Technical Learning Center (TLC) at this year’s Tech-Ed conference in Atlanta, GA. The TLC is the place to see Microsoft product demos, talk with industry experts, learn about Microsoft services, and connect with your peers. In case you didn’t make it, the video below shows just how cool and organized the area was. 
I can’t wait for Orlando next year!
| Q. | We are implementing Product Life Cycle Management (PLCM) as part of our ISO certification. How does Scrum fit into the ISO world? We are also adopting 3M’s (our parent company) Lean Six Sigma process. Same question, how does Scrum fit into Lean Six Sigma?
| | A. | PLCM (or just PLM as some refer to it) describe the life of a product in the market. The lifecycle has stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and saturation/decline. Scrum only deals with the development of the product. Where the two management ideas intersect would be in release planning. The product owner, and other stakeholders, decide what features (PBIs) need to be in each of those releases. This is manifested through the product backlog. Smart planning and prioritization can help the product grow to maturity and hit (and stay in) the sweet spot of the PLCM. As for how the larger discussion of ISO and Scrum fit together, I recommend reading this IEEE paper on the subject which concludes that ISO does not equate to quality but only helps ensure the Agile (Scrum) practices are being followed. While Lean Six Sigma and Scrum have similar goals, the integration of the two strategies must be done carefully to ensure success. Here are are a couple of articles on the subject: Integrating LSS and Scrum and Can Scrum Support Six Sigma? | | | | Q. | In Team Foundation Server, using hours (for baseline, remaining, and completed) how best to move an uncompleted task over to the next Sprint? | | A. | From a Scrum point of view, you wouldn’t want to move a task to the next Sprint unless the PBI or Bug that it was associated with was selected and committed-to by the Scrum Team. Assuming that is the case, then the developer who owns the task would re-estimate the remaining work. Tracking baseline and completed hours are considered waste because they don’t produce meaningful metrics in Scrum. Personally, I would just create a new task work item so that the old task would maintain its history and state according to the previous sprint. | | | | Q. | We have 5 .NET developers and 5 AS/400 developers. I know Team Foundation Server makes sense for .NET but can it store the RPG code? | | A. | Absolutely. Team Foundation Server is more than capable to store any development related artifact, such as RPG source code files. As the team matures in its understanding of ALM and usage of Team Foundation Server they can create and use work items to plan and track their work and associate to the checked-in code for maximum traceability. The question comes down to ease-of-use and how to allow the RPG developers to access source control with the least amount of friction. Ideas include using the TF.exe command line utility, the Team Foundation Power Tools Windows shell extension, or the Eclipse plug-in or cross-platform support found in Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2010. | | | | Q. | In getting started, would it be better to get Team Foundation Server or go get ScrumMaster certification? | | A. | To get started with Scrum, download and read the Scrum guide from Scrum.org. If you require training on the basics of Scrum then consider attending a Professional Scrum Foundations class, otherwise attend a Professional Scrum Master class. Passing the assessment to achieve the certification is optional. Once your team starts maturing in their game of Scrum, then consider implementing it using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server – unless of course you are already using TFS, then start using Visual Studio Scrum as soon as possible. | | | | Q. | Where do I store the D.O.D. (Definition of Done) in Team Foundation Server? | | A. | Unfortunately there is no first class (read: auditable) way of storing a team’s definition of done in Team Foundation Server. Your choices are to store the list in a document or on a wiki page on the (SharePoint) project portal. You might also consider using Thomas Schissler’s work item control. | | | | Q. | Moving from Team Foundation Server 2008, importing work items from various sources (e.g. using Excel), can the Agile Excel templates be used? | | A. | Yes, Excel is an extremely flexible way of importing work items from many data sources (not just Excel). |
UPDATE (3 June 2011): Watch the recorded presentation on Channel 9. Yesterday I gave a talk at TechEd on Dysfunctional software development teams. We primarily focused on people dysfunctions, but also talked about process and tool dysfunctions. If you attended, thank you for patience with my laryngitis. You can find the presentation attached below. 
Here are a few bookmarks from the presentation: Files: Slides (7mb)
|
Copyright © 2012 Richard Hundhausen. All rights reserved.
DasBlog 'Portal' theme by Johnny Hughes.
Pick a theme:
|
|