Chris Flaat's WebLog
Discussion of software processes and MSFT developer technologies.
Trying out pair programming
Greetings all – My team has been reporting success with pair programming, so I wanted to try it out...
Date: 12/30/2005
Software metrics primarily useful as negative indicators?
Dear Readers – I was thinking about metrics, and it occurred to me that most of the metrics we...
Date: 12/30/2005
People are not fungible resources
Hi all – We are currently using both Scrum and more traditional project management on several...
Date: 12/16/2005
Sprint 9 complete
Hi all – Well, we did sprint 9 broken up into two subteams, and it went quite well overall. The tone...
Date: 11/10/2005
Agile 2005
Hi all - Several people from MSBuild, the Developer Division, and Microsoft went to Agile 2005 last...
Date: 08/02/2005
Sprint 6 winding down
Well, we finally kicked off sprint 6 in June, and it finishes up next week. Being summer, there have...
Date: 07/01/2005
Pondering next steps
Hi all - With sprint 5 done, we are now in a quiet period, as we have balanced most of the resources...
Date: 05/05/2005
Managing the Product Backlog
There was a question from Dave Froslie on what we use to store our Product Backlog. We use an...
Date: 04/18/2005
Question about Scrum, waterfall, and more
Hi all – A reader named Steve Henke writes with some questions: First, you mentioned your concern...
Date: 04/13/2005
Scrum and development methods
I got a question from René Landgrebe about what development methods we use along with Scrum. He...
Date: 04/12/2005
Sprint 5 complete
Greetings all – Well, sprint 5 ended and yesterday we had the sprint review. Overall the sprint was...
Date: 04/12/2005
Too little sleep, too much caffeine
It seems like forever since I got eight hours of decent sleep. I love my kids, but it sure would be...
Date: 04/11/2005
Scrum and Productivity
Hi all – A reader named David Wylie wrote and commented the following (I’m posting his question here...
Date: 03/30/2005
Scrutiny and scheduling
Well, yesterday after much time spent learning the subtleties of Excel’s SUMIF formula and the...
Date: 03/25/2005
Expanded internal interest in Scrum
Today Dave Froslie was visiting Redmond from the Fargo MSFT site, and gave a talk to a VS team about...
Date: 03/23/2005
Team member "borrowed"
Well, effective this week we had one of our Scrum team members "borrowed" by another team for 6...
Date: 03/23/2005
StickyMinds article on implementing Scrum
Here is an interesting article on Scrum that I was pointed to by Apoorva Joshi. Alicia Yanik talks...
Date: 03/15/2005
"Ideal line" plotted on scrum burndown chart
Hi all - One new thing we're doing with this sprint is adding an "ideal line" to our scrum burndown...
Date: 03/14/2005
Sprint 5 planning
Greetings all – Well, our Product Owner got the product backlog ready in time for the first sprint...
Date: 03/08/2005
Sprint 5 beginning
Greetings all - Well, next week we’re going to start sprint 5. We had a couple of weeks between the...
Date: 03/03/2005
Sprint 4 ending (mostly) happily
Well, my dear readers, I’m pleased to report that we got things pulled together for sprint 4 and are...
Date: 02/09/2005
Continued use of Scrum
Dear Readers – We continue to use Scrum on our project, and we’re now finishing our third sprint...
Date: 02/03/2005
VS Core video on MSDN Channel 9
If you want to see what some of us VS Core and MSBuild folks look like in person, there's now a...
Date: 01/12/2005
Update on Scrum
Greetings all - Our use of Scrum is continuing, and we’re still quite happy with it. Our second...
Date: 01/06/2005
Comments on first scrum sprint
Hi all - Wanted to reply to a couple of comments about my prior entry about having completed our...
Date: 11/10/2004
MSBuild wiki on Channel 9 goes live
MSBuild now has a wiki spot here on Channel 9. You can also find a video of some of our team doing a...
Date: 10/27/2004
Continued progress on our first sprint
Yesterday was an interesting day. It was day 9 of our first sprint (named "sprint 2" to synch with...
Date: 10/13/2004
Thanks for the Scrum support!
Thanks for the supportive comments about my last post. I am aware of the scrumdevelopment mailing...
Date: 10/06/2004
Beginning our first Scrum sprint on Monday
Well, it's finally about to happen. I did a short presentation to get the team educated about Scrum...
Date: 10/02/2004
Newly minted Scrum Master
I now face the world as a Certified Scrum Master. Of course, I should note that Ken Schwaber...
Date: 09/15/2004
Oil and water...chlorine and ammonia...Scrum and big companies?
Well, my dear readers, I now have a dangerous idea in my head. One of the projects I'm responsible...
Date: 09/10/2004
Soon to be indoctrinated by Ken Schwaber
After having an interest in Scrum for a while now after reading Agile Software Development with...
Date: 08/31/2004
Headhunters on the prowl
I am so jazzed...I've been at Microsoft for 11 years, often prowling public places with my MSFT...
Date: 08/24/2004
Command-line build (devenv /build, MSBuild, etc.)
In the comments about a post I made a year ago about devenv /build (here), a person named Peter just...
Date: 08/24/2004
Back from Easter Island and Chile
I had a great time on Easter Island. The pics are here. I'm having trouble getting Easter Island...
Date: 01/02/2004
Hello from ASP.NET!!
Greetings all - We've been moved (not voluntarily, I might add) to this new blog server. So far...
Date: 01/02/2004
My blog is moving
Dear Readers - Please be advised that my blog is moving to...
Date: 01/02/2004
Management tour of duty
Greetings, all! My apologies again for doing such a bad job of keeping you up to date. I...
Date: 11/20/2003
MSBuild talk at PDC
Hi all - So, as I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, Alex Kipman & Rajeev Goel are going...
Date: 10/17/2003
Career crossroads
Greetings all – My apologies for being a bit out of touch for the last few weeks. There...
Date: 10/17/2003
Have to recommend "Whale Rider"
So, I saw the movie Whale Rider this weekend, and I have to say it's one of the best movies I've...
Date: 09/22/2003
Introducing MSBuild
Hi all - More stuff has come online. See here for a little blurb about MSBuild, which...
Date: 09/16/2003
PDC 2003 tracks announced
Greetings, all! Microsoft has announced the broad outline of the material to be presented at...
Date: 09/16/2003
Feature creep: the bane of big software projects
Greetings all! Today something happened which got me thinking about one of the nastiest...
Date: 09/15/2003