Professional Scrum Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (Developer Reference)

Discover how to turn requirements into working software increments - faster and more efficiently - using Visual Studio 2012 in combination with Scrum and Agile engineering practices. Designed for software development teams, this guide delivers pragmatic, role-based guidance for exploiting the capabilities of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. Team members will learn proven practices and techniques for implementing Scrum to manage an application's life cycle, as well as seamlessly plan, manage, and track their Scrum projects. Cover Page 1 Praise for this book Page 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Contents at a Glance Page 8 Contents 10 Foreword 16 Introduction 20 Who should read this book 20 Who should not read this book 21 Organization of this book 21 Finding your best starting point in this book 21 Conventions and features in this book 22 Code samples 23 Installing and using the Scrum Robot 23 Acknowledgments 24 Errata & book support 24 We want to hear from you 25 Stay in touch 25 Part I: Fundamentals 26 Chapter 1: Scrumdamentals 28 The Scrum Guide 28 Scrum in action 29 Scrum roles 31 Scrum events 39 Scrum artifacts 52 Definition of “Done” 61 The professional Scrum developer 62 Chapter burndown 64 Chapter 2: Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 ALM 66 Delivering continuous value 67 Visual Studio 2012 69 Editions 71 Team Foundation Server 76 Team Foundation Service 77 Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2012 79 MSDN subscriptions 79 Chapter burndown 80 Chapter 3: Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 82 Dissecting the process template 82 MSF process templates 84 Exploring a process template 84 Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 86 What’s new and different 87 Work item types 92 Work item queries 106 Reports 108 Common customizations 111 Chapter burndown 113 Part II: Using Scrum 116 Chapter 4: The pre-game 118 Setting up the development environment 119 Team Foundation Server: Buy vs. build 119 Create a team project collection 121 Configure Team Foundation Build 122 Configure Lab Management 125 Setting up product development 128 Create a team project 128 Source control 133 Automated builds 138 Project portal 140 Reports 143 Security groups 146 Teams 147 Chapter burndown 149 Chapter 5: The Product Backlog 152 Creating the Product Backlog 152 Team Web Access 153 Using the “quick add” experience 155 Handling epic PBIs 159 Importing existing PBIs 162 Reporting a bug 165 Effective Product Backlog creation 172 Grooming the Product Backlog 174 Specifying acceptance criteria 175 Estimating items in the Product Backlog 177 Tracking estimates in the Product Backlog 180 Ordering the Product Backlog 181 Planning a release 185 Time-driven vs. feature-driven releases 186 Controlling and prioritizing scope 186 Using Velocity to estimate 187 Release Burndown report 191 Chapter burndown 192 Chapter 6: The Sprint 194 Creating the Sprint Backlog 195 Forecasting the PBIs 195 Capturing the Sprint Goal 198 Creating the plan 199 Daily Scrum activities 204 The Daily Scrum 205 Taking on work 208 The task board 210 Chapter burndown 221 Chapter 7: Acceptance test-driven development 222 Keep the conversation going 223 Collaborative specifications 224 Executable specifications 226 Acceptance test-driven development 227 Test-driven development 230 Automated acceptance testing 231 Creating a test case 231 Associating an automated test 235 Executing automated acceptance tests 239 Reusing test cases 242 Other acceptance-testing frameworks 246 Acceptance 249 Chapter burndown 250 Chapter 8: Effective collaboration 252 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 252 Listen actively 254 Collocate 255 Set up a team room 257 Meet effectively 258 Collaborate productively 259 Achieve continuous feedback 261 Collaborative development practices 262 Collective code ownership 263 Commenting in code 265 Code reviews 266 Collaborative development tools 269 Team Foundation Server 269 Continuous integration 270 Gated check-in builds 274 Email alerts 275 Shelving 278 My Work 279 PowerPoint Storyboarding 282 Feedback client 286 Code reviews 292 Chapter burndown 296 Part III: Improving 298 Chapter 9: Continuous improvement 300 Common challenges 300 Bugs 301 Impediments 302 Estimation 304 Assessing progress 307 Renegotiating scope 311 Undone work 313 Spikes 318 Fixed-Price contracts and Scrum 319 Common dysfunctions 321 Not getting “done” 322 Flaccid Scrum 323 Not inspecting, not adapting 324 Development Team challenges 325 Working with a challenging Product Owner 329 Working with challenging stakeholders 332 Working with a challenging Scrum Master 334 Changing Scrum 337 Improving 340 Get a coach 340 Build a cross-functional team 341 Achieve self-organization 342 Improve transparency 343 Swarm 344 Use a Kanban board to limit WIP 344 Professional Scrum Developer training 347 Assess your knowledge 347 Become a high-performance Scrum Development Team 348 Chapter burndown 349 Appendix Page 352 Index Page 366 About the author 380 Survey Page 385 Elevate the quality of your code and products by using Scrum practices in combination with Visual Studio 2012. Designed for development teams, this guide delivers pragmatic guidance for exploiting teams, this guide delivers pragmatic guidance for exploiting the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. You'll learn the most effective ways to implement Scrum at all phases of development--and use ALM to plan, manage, and track everyday tasks. This book will be most useful for Visual Studio teams considering adopting Scrum, mature Scrum teams already working with Visual Studio, and scrum teams who are considering Visual Studio.-- Source other than Library of Congress

Discover how to turn requirements into working software increments-faster and more efficiently-using Visual Studio 2012 in combination with Scrum and Agile engineering practices. Designed for software development teams, this guide delivers pragmatic, role-based guidance for exploiting the capabilities of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. Team members will learn proven practices and techniques for implementing Scrum to manage an application’s life cycle, as well as seamlessly plan, manage, and track their Scrum projects.