SCRUM with Visual Studio
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.
Alternatively when you use TFS as you storage for your Project you can create your TFS project as an Agile project, "MSF for Agile Software Development", this is not really a full fit for the SCRUM process but it may do as an interim step to get you up and running quickly (it's what we have used ourselves), this gives you Task/Bug managment and Queries on the TFS system which you can use to create your Product Backlog but it's not ideal. It can be customised somewhat with "Customizing Work Item Types".I found the documentation on this topic lacking, first thing to note is that you must be logged in as a TFS Administrator to get the following options else they appear greyed out. There is a option within the "Team" menu name "Process Editor", in here you'll find options to edit Work Items or Bugs or the Process itself, the "Process Editor" is a graphical representation of the XML settings files that store the fields that appear in the various dialogs in TFS and constraints and actifities that are fired when a TFS user does something. These can all be customised and I suppose the Administrator could change the settings enough for the process to mimic SCRUM, I have tried a couple of things such as adding extra security contraints to certain actions, allowing and disallowing certain users from marking Bugs as Closed for example.
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 think it is another layer for joining up Microsoft Project to TFS to Visual Studio.
- The second option ScrumforTeamSystem is also a substantial application for managing the SCRUM process, In my case we're currently in Visual Studio 2005 so we're limited to using ScrumForTeamSystem v1.x, in their support forum it mentions an improved Client, ScumForTeamSystem v1.2. There's also a Blog which tells more on how to setup new projects at http://blogs.conchango.com/sfts/default.aspx.I've installed this, there are 2 installations required for this, one on you Server which is hosting TFS and the other on the client. The first installation installs the Process Template an makes it available to the project administrator to create new Projects with Scrum, after installation you'll see a new template exist in the Team Project Settings dialog, next time you create a new Team project this template will be available to you.
- eScrum I haven't really tried, I downloaded the installer but unfortunately I could not find any documentation on eScrum, the installer is all that's available and this Blog did not speak favourable on the installation process hence I didn't bother installing.
Alternatively when you use TFS as you storage for your Project you can create your TFS project as an Agile project, "MSF for Agile Software Development", this is not really a full fit for the SCRUM process but it may do as an interim step to get you up and running quickly (it's what we have used ourselves), this gives you Task/Bug managment and Queries on the TFS system which you can use to create your Product Backlog but it's not ideal. It can be customised somewhat with "Customizing Work Item Types".I found the documentation on this topic lacking, first thing to note is that you must be logged in as a TFS Administrator to get the following options else they appear greyed out. There is a option within the "Team" menu name "Process Editor", in here you'll find options to edit Work Items or Bugs or the Process itself, the "Process Editor" is a graphical representation of the XML settings files that store the fields that appear in the various dialogs in TFS and constraints and actifities that are fired when a TFS user does something. These can all be customised and I suppose the Administrator could change the settings enough for the process to mimic SCRUM, I have tried a couple of things such as adding extra security contraints to certain actions, allowing and disallowing certain users from marking Bugs as Closed for example.
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