Technical Articles for Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management
Welcome to the technical articles for Application Lifecycle Management! These technical articles provide additional resources for you to use when supporting your development efforts with Team Foundation Server. Some provide in-depth technical information about unique scenarios that involve Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management. Others provide insights into development processes and philosophies from industry experts that you might want to consider when developing your software or working as a team on a software project. These articles represent the viewpoints, opinions, and experience of their individual authors.
Agile Principles
Agile Principles and Values, by Jeff Sutherland. Jeff Sutherland provides an overview of the Agile principles as defined in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Ten Year Agile Retrospective: How We Can Improve in the Next Ten Years by Jeff Sutherland. Ten years after the publication of the Agile Manifesto, Jeff Sutherland describes the successes of Agile and pinpoints four key success factors for the next ten years.
Done and Undone by Ken Schwaber and David Starr. Delivering a done increment is critical to being successful with agile software development. Using both real-world and theoretical examples, the authors demonstrate the difference between perception of "done" and the reality of "done," and how that affects the success of a project. Using these examples, the authors go on to demonstrate tools and strategies that can help teams start with a definition of done that makes sense for them, and methods to help teams communicate dependencies, status, and the meaning of "done."
Agile Practices
Building and Managing the Product Backlog by Mitch Lacey. A good product backlog is at the heart of any well-functioning agile team. In this article, Mitch Lacey explains the importance of a product backlog, describes what makes a good backlog, and provides some best practices for creating and maintaining your backlog.
Prioritization by Mitch Lacey. In this article, Mitch Lacey discusses three methods that have proven very beneficial for many Agile teams: the Kano Model of Customer Satisfaction, a series of Innovation Games by Luke Hohmann, and Karl Weigers’ Relative Weighting model. He describes how any of these methods can help you move from rough prioritization of your backlog to a precise ordering that satisfactorily weighs risk, importance, and customer satisfaction.
Estimating by Mitch Lacey. Mitch Lacey discusses the difficulty surrounding software project estimation, and provides tips and tricks for using two agile software estimation techniques when teams are estimating projects.
Sprint Planning by Mitch Lacey. Sprint planning does not need to be challenging. In this article, the author provides examples and strategies for keeping sprint planning focused and effective, and detail potential solutions to common problems teams encounter when planning a sprint.
Effective Sprint Retrospectives by David Starr. Going beyond techniques, this article offers ways to maintain and improve the practice and results of Retrospectives.
Distributed Scrum by David Starr. Distributed teams often struggle with consistent, timely, and effective communication. In this article, David Starr explains how Scrum offers a container in which different types of distributed teams can improve and succeed.
Lean and CMMI
Lean Software Development by David J. Anderson. David J. Anderson describes Lean Software Development, its history, and how it can be used by software development project teams.
CMMI Principles and Values by David J. Anderson. The concept that an organization can be appraised at a particular maturity level and that this is an indicator of capability to deliver reliable work to the government is a matter of ongoing debate. In this article, David J. Anderson makes a case for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and describes how it provides valuable insights for managers, process engineers and all external stakeholders including customers, investors, governance bodies and auditors.
The Lean of Scrum by David Starr. In this article, learn about the inherent Lean qualities of the Scrum framework along with various ways to help Scrum Teams improve using Lean Thinking.
Development Approaches
Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Overview. In this article, learn about the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), an adaptable approach for successfully delivering technology solutions faster, with fewer people and less risk, while enabling higher quality results.
Application Analytics: What Every Developer Should Know by Sebastian Holst. In this article, Sebastian Holst discusses the objectives and advantages of application analytics.
Exploratory Software Testing by James Whittaker. In this article, an excerpt from his book Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, tricks, tours and techniques to guide test design, James Whittaker discusses goals, advantages, and approaches to exploratory software testing.
See Also
Concepts
Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server
Engage Stakeholders through Continuous Feedback
Track Work and Manage Workflow
Customize Team Projects and Processes
Other Resources
Get Up and Running With a Single-Server Installation [Tutorial]
Process Guidance and Process Templates for Team Foundation Server