Bridging the Gap Between Developers and Testers Using Visual Studio 2010

In this first One on One with Visual Studioconversation, we’re joined by two of Canada’s experts on Visual Studio and ALM (application lifecycle management). Etienne Tremblay and Vincent Grondin will be talking to us about how Visual Studio’s extensive integrated tools make you more effective and efficient, allowing you to better collaborate with the rest of your project team. They’ll show you how testing tools like MS Test, IntelliTrace, and Coded UI make it easier for you to test – and test often – while not increasing your workload; about Team Foundation Server’s work item management and how it facilitates better communication between you, testers, project managers, and development managers; Team Foundation Server’s version control, lab management, and team build tools and how they can automate many of the manual tasks that you’re required to do today; and lastly, about Visual Studio Test Professional’s Test Manager and Test Runner so that you can do your part in reducing testing efforts and as a result, deliver to market faster.

Before we get started, a question to Etienne and Vincent. Etienne, Vincent, what inspired you to have this conversation with developers and testers?

We’ve been toying with the idea of creating a video series of interesting tips and tricks for TFS and VS for quite a while but time always seems to prevent us from doing it. Back in November 2010, Vincent Grondin, Mario Cardinal, Mathieu Szablowski, and I did a full day session at our local user group in Montreal about how developers and testers could be good friends with all the new VS 2010 tooling.  Jean-René Roy was in attendance and he liked it so much (so did the attendees) that he approached Vincent and I to redo it in Ottawa. He said that he would try and see if he could get a crew to record it! Well it was in the cards because he did get a real professional crew to film us while we were re-enacting our play (improved from the first showing) and that’s we’re going to take a look at here. 

We wanted to make a more “team oriented” presentation right from the beginning, we didn’t want to do yet another PowerPoint drone session for 8 hours. We wanted the audience (and now you) to feel like they (and you) were one of us and could relate to the problems we were facing and trying to resolve with the tools. We came up with the idea of making it a technical play. We actually talk to each other and the audience “spies” on us. It worked out great. Most people really enjoyed the format and asked us to do it again for other subjects.  We won’t lie to you, it was a lot of work – more than 70 hours went into preparing and rehearsing in order to deliver the final product. 

What do you hope that we’ll take away from this conversation?

There is a lot of information on the tools available on MSDN but it’s sometimes hard to find or make sense of in the context of real projects.  This conversation is an intro to this material in the real world (as much as it can be) and will provide you a good starting point on the various technologies and tools.  At the end, you can then go off to MSDN and find deeper information and see if the tooling works for you and your team.

We both hope you enjoy it.

Thank you Etienne and Vincent. Our conversation will be broken down in to sessions of 20-40 minutes to allow you to work it into your busy schedules. I’d recommend that you go in order as each segment builds on the previous.

• Session 1: Migrating VSS to TFS
• Session 2: Automating the Build
• Session 3: Where’s our backlog?
• Session 4: Adding a Tester to the Team
• Session 5: Tester at Work
• Session 6: Bridging the Gap
• Session 7: Stop, We Have A Problem!
• Session 8: Let’s Get Back on Track
• Session 9: Multi-Environment Testing
• Session 10: Testing in the Lab
• Session 11: UI Automation
• Session 12: Validating UI Automation
• Session 13: Look Boss, No Hands!

Before getting into the sessions, in this introductory video, Etienne and Vincent introduce themselves and set the stage for the rest of the conversation. Take a look.

Etienne and Vincent, on behalf of myself and the developers in Canada, thank you for having this conversation with us and for all the effort you put into helping us understand what’s possible.

Remember, this conversation is bidirectional. Share your comments and feedback on our Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn discussion. Etienne, Vincent, and I will be monitoring the discussion and will be happy to hear from you.

About Etienne Tremblay

Etienne Tremblay is an Associate Director in charge of the Microsoft technologies center at DMR-Fujitsu in Montreal. He has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry and he specialized in Microsoft technologies in the last 12 years, specifically in managing the development process, he also has expertise in the mining and manufacturing industries. He has spoken at DevTeach since 2005, is a member of the Microsoft Team System Advisory Council and a Microsoft ALM MVP. You can reach him at bridging.the.gap@live.com Additional links: Etienne’s blog, Microsoft MVP Profile, Email

About Vincent Grondin

Vincent Grondin has over 12 years of experience in the software development field and has been using .NET in enterprise projects for more than 8 years now. He was involved in many enterprise projects for large corporations like Desjardins, Domtar, Cascades and Alcoa but he was also part of a few projects for various government branches. He likes to learn new technologies related to .NET, use the new tools that are designed for .NET and he also loves to share it all with his peers. Yes, he’s a confessed .NET addict and currently works at DMR-Fujitsu as a Senior .NET Consultant. Additional links: Vincent’s blog, Microsoft MVP Profile, Email

The Bridging the Gap Between Developers and Testers Using Visual Studio 2010 was graciously sponsored by: