Developer Support

Advocacy and Innovation

ALM - Developer Support

Tracking Cross-team Projects in Azure DevOps Boards

October 29, 2018 Oct 29, 2018 10/29/18
Developer Support
If part of this transition requires that aspects from the legacy process be kept, it’s a great opportunity to demonstrate that through the use of agile process and agile tools, we can have an even better control of the value (beyond just software) that the development team is creating for the company.

Pragmatic TDD

October 23, 2018 Oct 23, 2018 10/23/18
Developer Support
I have been working on a small project in my free time in which I’m the only developer. When I started the project, I wanted to write the entire application in a test driven, test first, manner. I wrote my failing test, then made the test pass and as I saw opportunities to refactor, I took the time to reduce complexity, separate concerns and reorganize as needed. I was in a red-green-refactor rhythm and it was enjoyable to see the test count go up and my code coverage for tests at 100%… but then reality set in.

DevOps Stories – An Interview with Brian Blackman of Microsoft Premier

September 10, 2018 Sep 10, 2018 09/10/18
Developer Support
App Dev Manager Dave Harrison talks with Brian Blackman, a Senior Consultant for Microsoft Premier. As an Azure development and DevOps consultant, he works with Independent Software Vendors (ISV), Enterprises, and Partners where his specialty is DevOps. Brian’s focus is assisting customers in establishing a vision for DevOps, assessing where they currently stand, and then working with them to develop a roadmap to attain their vision. MCTP, MCSD-C++, CSM, CSP, SAFe Agilist.

WIP Your Product into Shape

July 13, 2018 Jul 13, 2018 07/13/18
Developer Support
In his latest post, Senior Consultant, Assaf Stone shares some useful suggestions on tracking Work In Progress (WIP) in VSTS.What is WIP?WIP simply means work in process (also sometimes, Work In Progress). This metric simply measures how many items (features, stories, backlog items, tasks) your team have started to develop, but have yet to ...

What is your Agile?

July 13, 2018 Jul 13, 2018 07/13/18
Developer Support
In this post, Senior Application Manager, AJ Weaver talks about the many interpretations of Agile.First, let me start by saying that when I am talking about Scrum, I am not necessarily talking about Agile. All Scrum is Agile but not all Agile is Scrum. As you can see below, Scrum is just one cornerstone of Agile. The term is misused and abused...

Continuous Delivery – Is it right for you?

June 8, 2018 Jun 8, 2018 06/8/18
Developer Support
This post is provided by App Dev Manager John Tran who explores the question: Is continuous delivery right for you?Coming from the operations world, I can't count the number of times someone has come to me asking for a production deployment on a Friday afternoon. This would always give me chills, thinking of all the late nights that I've been ...

Utilizing VSTS for Wholistic Organization Management – Should It Be Done?

May 14, 2018 May 14, 2018 05/14/18
Developer Support
In this post, App Dev Manager Kristofer Olin explores limits and intentions of a tool like VSTS to go beyond traditional ALM scenarios. You've probably heard stories of people who utilize Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for non-Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) related purposes.  For instance, I know someone that uses it to ...

Three questions that could improve your Agile team

May 1, 2018 May 1, 2018 05/1/18
Developer Support
This post is contributed by App Dev Manager Justin Scott who asks three very important Agile questions.Agile has been adopted by many successful companies who value quality, incremental change on a more frequent basis compared to a team that uses a waterfall development methodology. Teams that embark on the journey of introducing Agile often ...

Audit SQL Server stop, start, restart

March 27, 2018 Mar 27, 2018 03/27/18
Developer Support
In this article, Application Development Manager Steve Keeler outlines an approach for determining the domain identity of a user who has initiated a stop, start, or restart request on SQL Server services. Although SQL Server contains server and database auditing functionality as part of the product, this cannot be used to determine the ...