Scrum Ireland

SCRUM addons and process templates are available for Visual Studio but of course there are prerequisites such as Team Foundation Server (TFS) which must be installed and in use. 3 of the options available are  http://www.codeplex.com/VSTSScrum ,  http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com/ and eScrum. These provide applications which help manage the SCRUM process more easily.  I've had a quick look at the VSTSSCrum myself, the version I've looked at is Vs01 as my current project is running on Visual Studio 2005. To use go to the url above,  http://www.codeplex.com/VSTSScrum , download version 1. The template itself must be installed on the machine running your TFS, see the Readme.txt in the unzipped files.After installation the of the process template on the server you'll also need to install another client template on the Client, again the Readme.txt explains this. I haven't used this yet. There's also a Project Connector available from codeplex, this might be handy, I th...

The acronyms TFS and VSTS stand for Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team Suite or Visual Studio Team Server. All of the above terms are regularly used to represent each other but this is incorrect. The terms are different, hears a brief explanaition below thanks to  Dmytro Lapshyn  : People frequently say "VSTS" when they actually mean "TFS" and this creates some confusion. Use of VSTS to address both "Visual Studio Team Suite" and "Visual Studio Team System" also contributes to the confusion. To clear things up a bit: TFS - the server part of the suite that provides source control, build management and enables teamwork/ALM management Visual Studio Team Suite - the fullest edition of Visual Studio that includes team tools for developers, architects, testers, DB pros and a client license to TFS. Note that Team Explorer needs to be installed separately even though you have the CAL Visual Studio Team System - a more generic term for TFS plu...

Ideal time is the time to complete a task, without taking into account other non-developer tasks such as email, meetings. The total time taken (with the task + email + meetings +....) is known as the Elapsed Time (Real Time). Ideal time is useful when actually trying to get a correct time estimation for tasks. If a developer gives an estimation of 2 days for a task then there are a few factors you must take into account. First of all the 2 days is probably 2 Ideal Days, but this is not of much use if you do not know how much time the developer actually spends on the task (Ideal Time) and how much time they spend in total (Real Time). Lets say the developer has an Ideal Time/Real Time ratio of 1:3 meaning they spend one third of their time actually working on the task and two thirds of the time at meetings, email, browsing, lunch etc. Then you must multiply their 2 day estimate by this factor i.e. 2days x 3 = 6days. So know the Actual time for the task assuming their estimate was accura...

The "Work Unit" is a relative measurement of task time estimations against one another i.e. it's not an absolute time, e.g. Task 1 will take twice as long as Task 2. The Work Unit is also used in combination with Velocity (I'm not exactly sure how?) Task Estimation time = "Work Unit" x Velocity.

The measurement of the time taken for the team to complete an iteration. Velocity is used in combination with what are know as "Work Units" to give more accurate task time estimations. This is a useful record as it allows one to measure the difference between the estimated time and the actual time it takes the team to actually do the work. Using this value, you can adjust the estimates for future iterations and maybe projects as a whole. E.g. 4 developers on your team including yourself. 5 iterations in a project release. Each iteration is 2 weeks (10 days ). iteration 0: You and your team estimate 5 features can be implemented. At the end of the iteration only 4 of the features are completed, it takes another 3 days to complete the final feature. The iteration has actually taken 13days in total therefore the Velocity is currently 13/10 = 1.3. Use this 1.3 as a multipation factor in the estimation for the next release. iteration 1: You and your team estimate 4 features can b...