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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 12/30/2005

People are not fungible resources

Hi all – We are currently using both Scrum and more traditional project management on several...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 11/10/2005

Agile 2005

Hi all - Several people from MSBuild, the Developer Division, and Microsoft went to Agile 2005 last...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 04/12/2005

Sprint 5 complete

Greetings all – Well, sprint 5 ended and yesterday we had the sprint review. Overall the sprint was...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 03/30/2005

Scrutiny and scheduling

Well, yesterday after much time spent learning the subtleties of Excel’s SUMIF formula and the...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 03/14/2005

Sprint 5 planning

Greetings all – Well, our Product Owner got the product backlog ready in time for the first sprint...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 01/02/2004

My blog is moving

Dear Readers -   Please be advised that my blog is moving to...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 10/17/2003

Career crossroads

Greetings all –   My apologies for being a bit out of touch for the last few weeks.  There...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 09/22/2003

Introducing MSBuild

Hi all -   More stuff has come online.  See here for a little blurb about MSBuild, which...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 09/16/2003

PDC 2003 tracks announced

Greetings, all!   Microsoft has announced the broad outline of the material to be presented at...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT 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...

Author: Chris Flaat, MSFT Date: 09/15/2003

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