VSTS Rangers Process Improvements - We have listened to your feedback! Part 3 of 3

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In VSTS Rangers Process Improvements - We have listened to your feedback! Part 1 of 3 we introduced the first innovation which introduced a consolidated collaboration team site and in VSTS Rangers Process Improvements - We have listened to your feedback! Part 2 of 3 we covered the consolidated distribution list. The third and  last improvements, in this cycle, is focused on improving collaboration and increasing the transparency amongst all VSTS Rangers and throughout a VSTS Rangers project.

Lightweight Scrum Process – Phase 1 (Manual)

Problems we have all encountered in my own words, based on feedback:

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  • What is going on?
  • What am I supposed to work on, when and by when?
  • Why is no-one bugging me ... I am busy and I forget. Reminding me 2 weeks before the due date is not  working.
  • We liked the transparency and light weight management of some of current the VSTS Rangers projects, which investigated and tried some scrum basics. Why are we not adopting these on a broader scale?
  • ... and again many more.

… move from right hand scenario to those on the left, by maximising transparency and minimising black holes (loss of communication). Picture loaned from book “Software Engineers on their way to Pluto”.

Our answer

  • We have created a light weight scrum process and a manual Excel based planning workbook as a base template for future VSTS Rangers projects.
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  • We will be monitoring, tweaking  and supporting the VSTS Rangers process over the course of the next batch of projects. Our aim is for some of us to pursue the certified scrum master certification and use this as our field experience. In future we would like to move our currently manual light-weight process to a derivative of the TFS 2010 MSF Agile once we have a TFS 2010 server at our disposal for VSTS Rangers projects.
  • See Certified Scrum Developer course … we can finally remove the duck tape :)  for an overview of the scrum process and a quick reference poster we created.

Questions

  • Why are we not using TFS 2010 at this stage1?
    We are waiting for an externally facing TFS 2010 server and also want to first trial and tweak the lightweight process manually, before adopting and committing to a standard or customised team process template.
  • Is the use of the scrum based process a must for VSTS Rangers projects?
    No, if your team decides to use another process, you are not forced to use the lightweight Scrum based process.

See To scrum or to Run … that is the agile question? and Certified Scrum Developer course … we can finally remove the duck tape :) for related posts.

Acronyms Used

| MSF - Microsoft Solutions Framework | TFS – Team Foundation Server | VSTS – Visual Studio Team System |