MSFT: VSTS – Measure Projects

Watched this webcast today

Using Metrics from Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) to Manage and Troubleshoot Your Projects (Level 200)

given our current clients that are looking at TFS and/or asking us to help implement it. It was a nice run by of various reports and how MSFT sees them enabling the project management group. The keys I took away, however, were:

1. AVOID THE WORD AGILE? It is interesting to me that they specifically never said agile in this presentation … while the entire basis of thier demo was thier CMMI process (agile delivery approach). They referred to it as “Value Up”. I assume this is coming from thier PM SME group. Stop fighting the religious war over the word ‘Agile’. Take the concept and roll out the parts that make sense. Intriguing. Very intriguing. We are contemplating a similar move on the SCM front and Usability fronts. 2. SINGLE REPORTING VISION? It got me back on my horse that we need to have a singular reporting vision. Recent attempts at TFS rollouts by our teams are going with the angle of one project plan for the delivery team in TFS and allowing the PM group to have a seperate one. Watching this it is very clear with some deep thought the two can be integrated. Allow the dev team to work on infinite granualar tasks that ALL tie to a super set of project tasks (be it CMMI or another delivery method).

Here are my rough notes from the presentation:

Quote:

Tom Patton – Program Manager for Team Foundation Server …………○ 0:30 – Typical measures: Qlty, functionality, resources, time …………○ 1:30 – Two paridigms ……………………§ Work down (up front planning) ……………………§ Value up (iterative, agile) ……………………§ 2:00 comparison of the two (planning, chang mgmt, measure focus, qlty def, variance acceptance, work products, troubleshooting, approach to trust) …………○ 5:30 – Performance impacted by metrics (chart. Focus becomes metrics not ture end goal … in this case … great software. …………○ 7:00 – Friction Free Metrics in Team Foundation ……………………§ Unobtrusive collection ……………………§ Retain full history ……………………§ View metrics as they were in the past ……………………§ Changes as your process changes …………○ 10:30 — DEMO – How metrics are selected in Team System ……………………§ 11:00 Team Explorer control (bugs, issues, task items, customer requirements, dev tasks, migration action status, etc)….see how tasks or work items relate to other items … as program mgr you can see requirements related ……………………§ (they are demo’ing from the CMMI templates) ……………………§ 16:00 — Talk to build functionality, bugs fixed, functionality impacted, test results against that build …………○ 17:00 – Arch Overview ……………………§ Team Foundation DW System ………………………………□ Relational DW ………………………………□ OLAP Cube to render to players on project ………………………………□ Reports built on SQLServer and xls ………………………………□ Pulls from …………………………………………¨ People, Dates, Projects …………………………………………¨ Work Item Tracking …………………………………………¨ Version control …………………………………………¨ Team Build …………………………………………¨ Team Test …………………………………………¨ 3rd Party data sources …………○ 19:00 – Value Up Questions ……………………§ Which requirements have been tested ……………………§ What is the quality ……………………§ Where do rsrcs do need to focus ……………………§ How far can we get in avail time ……………………§ How effective is our outsourced team ……………………§ How demonstrate practices for audit\ ……………………§ How did the team perf trend? …………○ 21:45 – Shipped Reports ……………………§ From team explorer, project portal, doc lib, report mgr …………○ 22:30 – Demo 2 – Reports ……………………§ Team Explorer ………………………………□ Build report ………………………………□ Testing (regression test review) ……………………§ Portal ………………………………□ Various report views ………………………………□ CMMI reports. …………………………………………¨ Iteration comparison page …………………………………………¨ Remaining work (ie number of bugs) ……………………………………………………◊ Open, activations, closures …………………………………………¨ Issue/Task Work Item reporting ……………………………………………………◊ Blocked tasks, versus issues … associate …………………………………………¨ Friction free is just reporting on what goes on day to tday …………………………………………¨ Project Velocity …………………………………………¨ Reactivations. Defects carrying at any time … organge are reactivations (bugs reopened … poor testing) ………………………………□ 33:00 Front Page (Portal) Reports …………………………………………¨ Quality Indicator Report (on builds) ……………………………………………………◊ Test / pass rate, code churn … degree of code change build to build (relative risk), purple line is code statistics. …………………………………………¨ Customization might be to drill down drom one report …………………………………………¨ Files modified by date, by person, by director, by type, by priority, …………○ 41:15 – DEMO – Authoring Reports ……………………§ What can work in XLS ………………………………□ Ability to make reports on the data in xls ………………………………□ PIVOT table ………………………………□ Pull data from Team System DW ………………………………□ Slice by state. Activations. ……………………§ Report Designer ………………………………□ 47:00 – Deploy to reporting services ………………………………□ Show under reports node off team explorere ………………………………□ Its in Team System …………○ 48:00 – Q&A ……………………§ Documentation? ………………………………□ Look in process guidance / template ………………………………□ Team portal. Description of reports from link there ……………………§ Include xls chart in reporting svcs report? ………………………………□ No. Adhoc is xls. Use reporting services ……………………§ Look at changed code in report? ………………………………□ Unknown. Change set is known. Diff tools could help it. It would be work.

ECM: Documentum – Imaging

Digging around in EMC’s ‘myLearn’ site this morning. Decided to watch this webcast around BPM and Imaging given the ongoing activity in pipeline around process automation. You find it by loggin in here:

http://documentum.myLearn.com

searching for “BPM and Imaging – KOPC 2006”. FYI, search the forums for instructions on how to get a working login

http://wis-demo.gr.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=8607#8607

At 10,000 feet the core message I heard was:

Quote:

1. Nice Overview of an ECM solution 7 minutes in. Wove via four areas. We should leverage similar in position of any ECM (Sharepoint, NW, Stellent, Documentum). 2. Excellent example of collaboration integration to thier business process automation efforts 31 minutes in. In short they create workflow steps that create a collobration space (eRoom in thier lingo) that has defined activities that need to be completed at which point the collaboration room rengages the workflow and archives itself into the process with the other docs being manipulated.

Here are my detail notes:

Quote:

• BPM and Imaging – KOPC 2006 Pasted from <http://mylearn.documentum.com/mgrCourse/launchCourse.cfm?id_registrant=193270&id_host=325&id_course=18973&gt; • Solution: Document and Image Processing • 2:14 – Paper Management Problem ………..○ Still see customers w/ this problem ………..○ Manual ………..○ Official files can only be sequentially handles ………..○ Compliance controls are hard on paper ………..○ Customer service issues on paper • 4:00 ROI easy on paper ………..○ Copies ………..○ Filing/Retrieve ………..○ Avg stats – 19 copies of doc, $20 to file, $120 to search for misfiled, lose 1 out of 20 docs, 25 hours to recreate lost docs, $8 to process invcs (70% is doc handling) • 5:12 EMC acquires captiva (capture software). ………..○ Over holidays • 7:00 Imaging Vision – Technology View ………..○ Focuses (industry) ………………….§ Mortgage, Insurance Claims, New Account, Invc Processing ………..○ Process Services ………………….§ Colloboration Workspaces ………………….§ Business Process Automation ………..○ Content Services ………………….§ Docs, Forms, Rich Media, Web, Images, Msgs, Reports ………………….§ Capture / Edit ………………….§ Library ………………….§ Transformation ………………….§ Classification ………………….§ Search ………………….§ Publish/Distribute ………..○ Repository Services ………………….§ Compliance / Retention ………………….§ Policy Mgmt ………………….§ Archival ………………….§ Intelligent Storage ………..○ Integration Services • 10:00 — Acartus Acquired ………..○ That plus Captiva gives them end-to-end focus • 11:00 — Three Focuses ………..○ Capture ………..○ Process ………..○ Archive • 12:00 – Capture ………..○ Captiva Focus – Products – InputAccel (base platform), FormWare, Dispatcher, InputAccel(invcs), eInput ………..○ Devices: Scan, Fax, Multifunction, etc ………..○ Extract / Validate information from the document (OCR) ………..○ Doc Types Handled: Structured (all same), Semi Structured (different by vendor but large groups similar), Unstructured (each doc diff) ………..○ 17:15 – Dtl review of InputAcel ………………….§ 18:30 talk of extracting data from images and how ………..○ 20:00 – ABM-AMRO Customer Example ………………….§ 800,000 images a day processed ………………….§ Multi-Function devices at branch submits to a central solution ………..○ 22:00 – Captiva remains separate, continues to sell for FileNET’s and Stellents of the world • 24:30 – Process ………..○ Real value add is streamlining processes ………..○ They call it “Business Process Management” ………..○ See four steps ………………….§ Model / Simulate ………………….§ Deploy / Execute ………………….§ Monitor / Manage ………………….§ Analyze / Optimize ………..○ Products they offer: ………………….§ Required ……………………………□ Process Engine (model/simulate) ……………………………□ Business Process Engine (deploy/execute) ………………….§ Optional ……………………………□ Business Process Services (Webservices layer) ……………………………□ Collaborative Edition ……………………………□ Formlet user lisc ……………………………□ Process connectors for: iLog (rules eng), IDS Sheer (Simulator), Cognos (Reporting) ………..○ 29:30 – High Volume Process Enablement ………………….§ Queues, Queue management, workflow around queues ………………….§ Part of Documentum 5.3 (10/2005) ………..○ 31:00 – Collaboration Integration ………………….§ Manage collaboration objects as part of record ………………….§ Part of all Documentum areas (web, outlook, etc) ………………….§ Design Business Process … certain steps can be flagged as requiring collaboration. Talk to collaborative edition (eRoom) … create room, add data, add people, trigger alerts back to room, have exits on room that retrigger process. ………..○ 34:00 – Process Specific BPM Templates ………………….§ Use in pre-sales ………………….§ Offer to clients as starting point ………………….§ Loan Origination, Claims Processing, New Account Setup (late 2006) ………..○ 34:30 – Recent Deals (q4) on BPM ………………….§ Auto Insurer. Field adjusters loading content files to HQ. BPS used to receive and route uploads to be processed. ………………….§ Chip MFG. Contract management. ………………….§ Credit Card Operator. Dispute Management Application. Rules engine • 38:00 – Archive ………..○ Store / Archive / Retain ………..○ Focus: End of life transactions and assoc docs, COLD ………..○ Compliance / Retention functionality is top of mind for the business right now ………..○ ILM? Image Lifecycle Management ………………….§ Steps: Create/Capture, Change, Route, Approve, Publish, Retire ………………….§ Claim routing/High availability ………………….§ Large Volume ………………….§ Process focus ………………….§ Clear need for ways for better usage of storage (huge storage keys) ………………….§ Strong compliance / retrieval needs ………..○ 42:00 – Example – Cincinnati Financial ………………….§ Processes Enabled: Underwriting, Marketing/New Product, Legal/Compliance, Policy Creation / Admin, Claims Admin, Customer Service • 44:00 – Key Imaging Applications ………..○ Horizontal Apps (PO, Invc, Mail Room) ………..○ Fin Svcs ………..○ Gov ………..○ Life Sci (Patient, Case Rpts, HIPPA, Product Research/Trial Docs) • 48:30 Competitive Positioning (per EMC) ………..○ IBM – ………………….§ Strong – Viable vendor, MQ ………………….§ Weak – Legacy Platform, Complex, ………..○ FileNET ………………….§ Strong: Well established in FS vertical, strong partners ………………….§ Weak: Not complete, migration to p8 is still a fee and hard ………..○ Mobius ………………….§ Strong: Known COLD vendor ………………….§ Weak: No breadth, imaging, or BPM ………..○ Others (Stellent, Hummingbird, Interwoven) ………………….§ Message: Full ECM platform and EMC vendor. ………………….§ Interesting didn’t talk to Strength and Weakness