As I mentioned, I received numerous questions during my presentation at the WI .NET User Group a few weeks back.  One of the them was: “Is there a way to add the subject of a user story as an explicit field?”  After probing the individual a bit, I discovered he wanted to be able to sort user stories bases on this field.  As a recap a user story is typically in the form:

As a <type of user> I want <some goal> so that <some reason>

In this post I will show you how to add the <type of user> or user story role to the user story in TFS 2010.

First make sure you have TFS Power Tools installed.  For the TFS 2010 RC, download them here.

Second, I’m going to show you how to do it using the MSF for Agile v5.0 User Story Work Item Type (WIT).  While other templates are going to be slightly different, you can use this same method as a general guideline on how to do this.

 

Step 1:

Open the “User Story” WIT from the Server.

Step 2:

On the Fields tab click New.

Step 3:

Setup the new field similar to that below.  You will probably want to change “MyCompany” in the Reference name to be the name of your company.

Step 4:

Still in the Field Definition dialog, click on the Rules tab.

Step 5:

Click New, select ALLOWEDVALUES and click OK.

Step 6:

In the ALLOWEDVALUES dialog continue to click new and enter the desired roles until you have all the roles you want to use.

Step 7:

Click OK back to the WIT editor.

Step 8:

Go to the Layout Tab.

Step 9:

Right click on the Column node under Group – Classification and select New Control.

Step 10:

Setup the fields similar to the following:

Step 11:

Click Save.

 

Your’re Done!

Your User Story screen should now resemble the following:

You will also be able to add the Story Role column to queries and sort and filter by it.

 

 

Good luck and enjoy!

Last July I posted an article on how to use a histogram to gauge how accurately you or your team members estimate.  I’ve had a few people ask me about this recently so I thought I’d post on how to create these histograms in TFS 2010.  For a quick recap on what we want to accomplish with these histograms, take a look at my July article.  You will need a process template that allows you to capture and Original Estimate and Complete Work values.  (Such as the MSF for Agile v5.0 template)  Assuming you have Excel 2007 and Team Explorer 2010 installed, go ahead and open Excel and follow the steps below:

Step 1:

Click on the Data Ribbon and Select Existing Connections.

 

Step 2:

You should see TfsOlapReport which is a data connection to the Tfs_Analysis cube.  Select it and click Open. (If you don’t see the connection, go here.)

 

Step 3:

You should the Import Data Dialog.  Change the location of the data to $A$2 as show below and click OK.

 

Step 4:

Drag the field “Completed Work” into the Values box as shown below:

Step 5:

Drag the fields “Assigned To” and “State” into the Filter box as shown below:

Step 6:

Drag the field “ID” into the Row Labels box as shown below:

Step 7:

Select the team member you want to look at(in this case Bob Smith) and select the State to be closed in the filter list above the pivot table.  This is show here:

 

Step 8:

Click the dropdown next to Row Labels, select Value Filter and click on Equals.

Step 9:

Setup the Original Estimate value you want to estimate as shown below.  (In this case we will look at the original estimate being 16 hours.) Click OK.

Step 10:

At this point you are ready to build your histogram.  You can use Excel’s Data Analysis pack to build one for you or you can build you own. I like to build my own since the Data Analysis pack charts are kinda crappy, so this is the method I will show.  Start by clicking the top-left corner of the worksheet to select the entire worksheet.   Press Ctrl-C to copy it.

Step 11:

Select Sheet 2 and press Ctrl-V to paste a copy of the pivot table into the new worksheet.

Step 12:

Select the cell directly to the right of the “Completed Work” column header.

Step 13:

Select the Data ribbon and click the Advanced Filter button.

Step 14:

Set the List Range to the all the data in the Completed Work column and select the "Unique records only” check box.  Click OK.

Step 15:

You should have a list that resembles the following:

Step 16:

Copy the values from the filter Completed Work column and paste them back into Sheet 1.  This should resemble the following:

Step 17:

Label the column data you just pasted in as “Bin” and label the column to the right of it “Count”

Step 18:

In the first data cell of the Count column add the following formula:  =COUNTIFS($B$5:$B$100,"=" &D5)

Step 19:

You will need to modify the first argument of the formula added in Step 18 to be the full range of the Completed Work column and the second argument to point the value in the Bin column.

Step 20:

Copy this formula down in the the empty cells.

Step 21:

Total you Count column.

Step 22:

Select your count column and click a bar chart on the Insert ribbon.

Step 23:

Rick click on your chart and click Select Data.

Step 24:

Select Edit under the Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels text.

Step 25:

Select all the values in your Bin column for the Axis label range. Click OK all the way back to the worksheet.

Step 26:

Select your Bin/Count table and then click the Sort Smallest to Largest button in the Data ribbon.

 

You’re Done!

 

This data should be used to help you and your team get better at estimating.  As the goal of this type of exercise is to increase our skills, I would advise against using this as a means of rating individual performance.  This can backfire by creating resistance to entering real data significantly skewing the results.

Good luck and enjoy!

I presented “Succeeding With Agile & TFS 2010” for the MADdotNET User Group last night to a full house.  I want to thank everyone for the turnout and the great questions and discussions!  I’m going to try to post some articles as follow-ups to some the the questions that were asked last night that didn’t get the attention they deserve.  Some of these topics will be:  Agile Estimation, Technical Debt, Code Churn and including bugs and refactoring on the Product Backlog.  Let me know if I missed anything you want me to cover.

For those that are interested, here is the presentation:

During my presentation at the WI .NET User Group the this past week, I had a number of questions on customizing the TFS Process Template.  I’m going to answer some of these questions in detail on my blog.  The first one I’m going to cover is “Can I lock the original estimate in TFS so I can see how good we are at estimating?”  The answer is yes.  But before we begin, a couple of notes.

First make sure you have TFS Power Tools installed.  For the TFS 2010 RC, download them here.

Second, I’m going to show you how to do it using the MSF for Agile v5.0 Task Work Item Type (WIT).  While other templates are going to be slightly different, you can use this same method as a general guideline on how to do this.

Finally, what we are looking to do here is lock (make read only) our Original Estimate once we start booking time against the task.  Here’s how:

Step 1:

Open the “Task” WIT from the Server.

Step 2:

Goto the Workflow tab.

Step 3:

Open the initiating transition.  (The one that sets up the Active state on the far left)

Step 4:

Select the Fields tab.

Step 5:

Click new.

Step 6:

Select the Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork field.

Step 7:

Goto the Rules tab.

Step 8:

Click new and select the COPY rule type and click OK.

Step 9:

Set the fields as follows:

Step 10:

OK all the way back to the Workflow tab.

Step 11:

Open the Active State either by double clicking or selecting “Open Details” from the context menu.

Step 12:

Click New.

Step 13:

Select the field Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.OriginalEstimate.

Step 14:

Goto the Rules tab.

Step 15:

Click New, select WHENNOT and click OK.

Step 16:

Select Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork for the Field and 0 for the Value.

Step 17:

Goto the Rules tab.

Step 18:

Click New and Select READONLY.

Step 19:

OK all the way back to the Workflow tab.

Step 20:

Click Save.

You’re Done!

 

Now as long as you don’t enter any work against as task you can continue to modify the Original Estimate field. 

Once hours are booked against the task, the Original Estimate field changes to read only.

Good luck and Enjoy!

Making the transition to Agile can be challenging for even the most seasoned organization. Having good leadership and the right tools can make all the difference. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience Chad will be walking us through methods that can be used to avoid common pitfalls and using Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 as an Agile platform. In this highly interactive session, Chad will demonstrate some of the new features of TFS 2010 as they relate to Agile estimation, planning, execution and measurement. If your organization is considering a migration to Agile or the TFS 2010 platform, you are encouraged to attend.

 

I presenting the above topic tonight at the Wisconsin .NET User Group.  Register Here!

I will also be giving the same presentation at the Madison .NET User Group on March 3rd.  Register Here!

Look for a presentation in the Chicago Land area towards the end of March.

I am happy to announce that we (Rangers) have released the new Requirements Management Guidance for TFS 2010!

This Ranger solution addresses the People, Process, and Technology guidance for Requirements Engineering (RE) using Team Foundation Server. The goal of this guidance is to provide formalized Microsoft field experience in the form of recommended procedures and processes, Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server configurations, and skill development references for the Requirements Engineering discipline of your application lifecycle.

Visual Studio ALM Rangers
This guidance is created by the Rangers who have the mission to provide out of band solutions for missing features or guidance. This content was created with support from Microsoft Product Group, Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) and technical specialists from technology communities around the globe, giving you a real-world view from the field, where the technology has been tested and used.

What is in the package?
Requirements Management is a vast area with many disciplines. To address your areas of interest and expertise, we have packaged the content in 9 zip files. The default download is the complete package in one zip file for those who are interested in all areas.

1. Introduction: RM Rangers Guide to the Complete Guide Start Here
2. Requirements Management Planning
3. Requirements Traceability
4. Analysis and Breakdown
5. Requirements Elicitation
6. Requirements Specification
7. Requirements Validation
8. Requirements Change Management and Approval
9. Requirements Management checklist sheet

 

Great job Mike Schimmel & the rest of the team!

For those of you out there doing TFS 2010 presentations and demos, here is the TFS “stadium graphic” with the new SKUs and branding.

Enjoy!

I have a couple of custom-written apps that allow teams to track current progress on a projector using TFS.  I just found a community project on CodePlex that looks like a promising replacement, Scrum Sprint Monitor.

Scrum Sprint Monitor provides the Agile team with hands-off, always up-to-date status of the current Sprint, both at the individual and team level. It is designed to run either on a large LCD screen located in a public area, or as a desktop application.

Looks like a great product!  If you try it, let me know what you think.