Difference between VS2010 Scrum v1.0 vs MSF for Ag

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How significant are the differences between Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 & MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 process templates?

Has anyone used one over the other?

We are currently using external tools (TRAC) for implementing Scrum in our development process, since MS came up with additional process guidance in TFS2010, these 2 things confuse me to the core!

Unsure, which one to adopt!

Answer 1

This MSDN page might be of use: Choose a Process Template.

It does a decent job at highlighting the differences between the following 3 default process templates.

• Scrum Process Template for Visual Studio ALM
• MSF for Agile Software Development v6.0
• MSF for CMMI Process Improvement v6.0

Keep in mind that it's aimed at the Visual Studio 2012 suite of tools.

Answer 2

My background summary: TFS Architect/Admin from 2005 to present. Many large and small development organizations from 20 to 7,000. Public and Private sector. HIPAA, FDA, SOX compliance. ALM, SCM, RM.

The answers currently provided are attempting to answer the question from a project level perspective, which is typical, rather than from an organizational and maintenance perspective. And also siding with one camp or another, which should be avoided.

The answer to your question depends on your situation. What type of queries or reports are needed or would like to be seen in the project? And to reiterate what the top response is: the tool should not dictate scrum and to go along with that, does the project need to be somewhat flexible?

A take away from real world scenarios that I have experienced with multiple clients, is that they usually start with the basic Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 template and then add things to it. ie: queries, reports, work items, dashboards, etc. Which inevitably leads them back to either the Agile or CMMI template with the burn down reports/queries/work items being added. Have seen this multiple times regardless of the size of organization.

It wouldn't matter if the god of scrum came down and created the scrum template for TFS. A more important question is 'What does your process support; how disciplined are personnel to follow process; and can they agree on semantics? If it's a real bother that the names don't match up, the work item types/names can be changed/added/removed, it's still the process driving it all that matters.

One real important aspect of the templates, from a pure TFS perpsective, is that scrum 1.0 work items may be added to the the agile 5.0 work items easier than the other way around. Why? The fields and data entry points already exist in agile where they do not in scrum. Which in turn reduces the amount of time figuring out which fields that exist in the system to reuse without causing conflicts.

Without sounding factious, and I'm trying not too, it's similar to stating that using Microsoft Word is to confusing to people because there's too many features/functions. Most people ignore these features/functions until there is curiosity or need to use them. Otherwise companies should not have the added expense of paying for Microsoft Word licenses and just use WordPad. Curiosity and need is what promotes understanding and knowledge.

Answer 3

You're not alone! We have used both, mistakenly starting with the MSF Agile 5.0 template. If you are using Scrum specifically, I would use the Scrum 1.0 template. The Scrum 1.0 template was created with Ken Schwaber, one of the founders of Scrum.

The MSF Agile 5.0 Template contains workbooks which allow a lot of control over reporting data using excel. But, there's many more disadvantages. It doesn't have a release burndown report. In order to produce a usable sprint burndown, you need to record actuals in your tasks. The product backlog is hard to keep groomed. The user story is the only backlog item, so tracking engineering spikes or non functional requirements are awkward.

The Sprint 1.0 uses a "Sprint" workitem type which makes velocity and burndowns a snap.

So, as far as tools go, it's pretty good.

Answer 4

The Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 template was build from the ground up to support Scrum, using Scrum terminology as much as possible. It is being developed in coordination with Scrum.org and the Scrum Professional Developer program. If you are using Scrum, the VSS 1.0 template will offer you less friction than the Agile template.

That said, you should be scrummy and question if adopting TFS and the VSS 1.0 template could provide you better value than using the current tool you are using now. Questions to ask here are: will you gain benefit from the integration of Product Backlog Items, Sprint Tasks, Code Checkins, CI builds, Manual Tests, Coded Tests, Unit Test Results, etc.

Perhaps some of the standard reports allow you to gain a better insight in the Quality of the Product Increment. E.g. Are you Done? Unit Tests & Code Coverage reports, Test Reports, Build Reports. Do these help in answering that question better?

Perhaps none of this is applicable and using your current solution is the best way for your team to improve. Its up to you to experiment and decide.

(Or you can hire me, and I'll gladly help you decide after having worked in the team and finding out what issues could possibly improve your team ;-)

Answer 5

SCRUM template follows some of SCRUM terminology and artefacts. You have sprints instead of iterations, you have user stories instead of requirements, tasks, burndown charts etc. But in my opinion TFS is hard to use because it is not very productive.

We are using similar non MS template for Visual Studio TFS 2008. During my first SCRUM project we used directly TFS and Excel to collect user stories, to prepare tasks etc. It was extremely slow. Just creating tasks for 4-5 developers and 4 weeks sprint (I will never use such long sprint again) took me always about two days. Such a waste. Moreover there was no build in support for printing cards for taskboard. Another disadvantages of non MS template (not sure if this is the same for MS one) is that each reported bug is immediately added to product backlog (it is new user story), there is no way to collect constraints, user stories don't have predefined field for acceptance criteria and tasks don't have field for real time spent on task completion (good for retrospective of estimates). Fields can be probably added if you have TFS under your control but it is not my case.

I still have to use TFS (company policy) but I'm working with user stories and task as much as possible outside the TFS - pen and paper works best. Still TFS is good for tracking sprint progress and automatically generated burndown charts but you have to find good balance between number of tasks, complexity of tasks and sprint length.