Agile Project Management using Team Foundation Server 2015 (eBook)

Joachim Rossberg has authored six books for Apress. He has worked as an IT consultant since 1998. He is primarily a Product Owner, agile coach and project manager but has an extensive history as a system developer/designer. He has demonstrated his technical background with various achievements over the years and has achieved the following distinctions: MCSD, MCDBA, MCSA, and MCSE. His specialties include agile project management, ALM process, and Team Foundation Server. Joachim is now working for Solidify in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Contents at a Glance 6
Contents 8
About the Author 14
About the Technical Reviewer 16
Acknowledgments 18
Introduction 20
Chapter 1: Introduction to Application Lifecycle Management 21
Aspects of the ALM Process 21
Four Ways of Looking at ALM 24
The SDLC View 25
The Service Management or Operations View 26
The Application Portfolio Management View 26
The Unified View 27
Three Pillars of Traditional Application Lifecycle Management 27
Traceability 28
Automation of High-Level Processes 28
Visibility into the Progress of Development Efforts 29
A Brief History of ALM Tools and Concepts 29
Application Lifecycle Management 1.0 30
Application Lifecycle Management 2.0 32
Application Lifecycle Management 2.0+ 35
DevOps 37
Summary 38
Chapter 2: An Overview of TFS 39
Application Lifecycle Management Overview 39
Team Foundation Server Overview 40
Team Foundation Server 40
Process Template 42
Visual Studio 2015 Editions 43
TFS Web 44
Microsoft Office 44
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Integration 44
Traceability 45
The TFS Work Item Tracking System 45
Work Items 45
Configuration Management Using TFS 47
Version Control and Release Management in TFS 2015 47
Build Management 48
Automation of High-Level Processes 49
Visibility 50
Collaboration 51
Work Items for Collaboration 52
The Gap Between IT and Business 53
Office/MS Project Integration 53
Use of One Role-Based Tool 54
Extensibility 54
Differences Between TFS and VSTS 54
Summary 55
Chapter 3: Introduction to Scrum and Agile Concepts 56
The Scrum Framework 56
Empirical Process Control 57
Complexity in Projects 58
What Scrum Is 59
Roles in Scrum 61
The Product Owner 61
The Team 61
The Scrum Master 62
The Scrum Process 62
Definition of Done 65
Agile Requirements and Estimation 67
Requirements 67
Estimation 68
Backlog 69
During the Sprint 70
Daily Stand-Up 70
Sprint Review 71
Sprint Retrospective 71
Kanban 72
Start With What You Do Now 73
Agree to Pursue Incremental, Evolutionary Change 73
Respect the Current Process, Roles, Responsibilities, and Titles 73
The Five Core Properties 73
Visualize the Workflow 74
Limit Work in Process (WIP) 75
Manage Flow 75
Make Process Policies Explicit 76
Improve Collaboratively (Using Models and the Scientific Method) 76
Common Models Used to Understand Work in Kanban 76
Extreme Programming 77
Scaling Scrum 78
SAFe 78
Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) 80
How Agile Maps to ALM 82
Agile Captures Task-Based Work 82
Increased Frequency of Inspection 82
Many Tools Collect Much Information 82
Test Artifacts Are Important 83
Agile Teams Plan Frequently 83
Summary 83
Chapter 4: Work Items and Process Templates 84
ALM Revisited 84
Traceability 85
The TFS Work Item Tracking System 85
Work Items 86
The Work Item Form 89
Work Item Traceability 90
Work Item Queries 93
Conclusions on the Work Item Tracking System 94
The Process in TFS 95
Agile, CMMI, and Scrum 95
Scrum 95
Agile 97
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) 99
Workflow States 101
Work Item Types For All Processes 102
Work Items that Support MTM 103
Summary 104
Chapter 5: Customizing the Process Template in TFS 105
Process Customization 105
Modifying the Process Template In TFS On-Premise 105
Common Adaptations of the Process Template 108
Work Item Types 108
Work Item Queries 109
Reports 110
Areas and Iterations 110
Modifying Work Items 111
How to Open the Process Template 112
Work Item Fields 115
Work Item Workflow 119
Modifying the Process Template in Visual Studio Team Services 120
Modifications to the Web Access 120
Modifications to the Process Templates in VSTS 124
Summary 133
Chapter 6: Agile Practices in TFS 134
Agile Testing 134
Acceptance Criteria 135
Evolving Tests 136
Clients for Managing Tests 137
Microsoft Test Manager 137
Microsoft Web Test Case Manager 138
Test-Driven Development 139
Working with Automated Tests 140
Continuous Integration 140
Why Continuous Integration? 141
Continuous Delivery 143
Coding Standard 144
Refactoring 145
Pair Programming 145
Summary 146
Chapter 7: Metrics in Agile Projects 147
Project-Management Metrics 147
Agile Metrics 147
Metrics for Architecture, Analysis and Design 152
Metrics for Developer Practices 152
Code Coverage 153
Code Metrics 153
Compiler Warnings 153
Code Analysis Warnings 154
Metrics for Software Testing 154
Example Reports 154
Bug Status Report 155
Reactivations Report 155
Bug Trend Report 156
Metrics for Release Management 157
Sample Reports 157
Using Charts to Monitor Metrics 159
Summary 161
Chapter 8: Agile Project Management in TFS 162
Case Study 162
Company Background 162
The Pilot Project 163
The People 163
Scrum Process 163
TFS/VSTS Web Portal 164
Charts and Queries 165
Project Startup Phase 167
PO Sets Off to Work 167
Building the Initial Team 168
Creating New Teams 169
The Backlog and Team Structure for the Fabrikam Pilot 172
Building the Teams 173
Adding Team Members 174
Managing VSTS Groups, Teams, and User’s Permission 176
Managing Alerts 177
Requirements 178
Building the Backlog 179
Adding Backlog Items in TFS/VSTS 179
Definition of Done (DoD) 181
Estimation 182
Poker Planning/Story Points 182
Updating the PBI 183
Risk Assessment 183
Updating the Backlog Order 184
Refining the Backlog 184
Initial Velocity 184
Available Time 184
Capacity Planning in TFS 185
Initial Sprint Planning 186
Updating Backlog and PBI 187
Forecast in TFS 188
Release Planning 190
Epics 190
Estimated Time Plan 191
Estimated Project Cost 191
Scrum Meetings During the Sprint 191
Sprint Planning 192
Daily Stand-Up 197
Retrieving Data from TFS/VSTS 198
Backlog Refinement 200
Sprint Review 200
Sprint Retrospective 201
Summary 201
Index 202