New Tool Set Provides Improved Support for Agile Software Development

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1 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Customer Solution Case Study New Tool Set Provides Improved Support for Agile Software Development Overview Country or Region: United States Industry: Professional services Customer Profile (CCIS) develops IT solutions for public-sector and privatesector companies. The company has 85 employees and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Business Situation CCIS used a mix of nonintegrated tools to manage the software development process, which hampered the company s ability to follow agile software development principles. Solution CCIS adopted an application lifecycle management strategy enabled and supported by Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, which is helping the company better follow and get more out of an agile development methodology. Benefits Consistent and streamlined application lifecycle 10 to 15 percent increase in developer productivity Improved software quality Better collaboration and communication Strong application platform One thing that immediately stood out about Team Foundation Server was its flexibility specifically, the ability to customize work item types and other project artifacts to support our own way of working. (CCIS) used a mix of tools to support software development, which resulted in a drain on productivity, software quality issues, and suboptimal communication. The company addressed those issues with an application lifecycle management strategy enabled and supported by Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, which provides role-based tools for all members of the development team, combined with a centralized repository for project data. CCIS now is benefiting from a more consistent and streamlined application lifecycle, increased productivity, improved software quality, and better communication and reporting all leading to increased customer satisfaction. Moreover, the company s choice of tools enables it to get the most out of Microsoft software as an application platform.

2 Process distribution and enforcement is now built into the team experience, along with real-time reporting on how well we re executing those processes. Situation (CCIS) serves clients in both the private and public sectors, and has an exceptional track record developing IT solutions and applications for the U.S. military. The company is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, where its facilities have a top secret military security clearance. Of the company s 85 employees, the majority are technical developers, testers, and business analysts. Developers are divided into four or five project teams, which, on larger projects, are subdivided into feature teams. Most developers work at the company s Raleigh office, although a few are embedded with clients in military operations areas such as Afghanistan. CCIS practices universal code ownership, with developers expected to be able to contribute to all components of a solution. Most projects are based on Microsoft.NET technology, although CCIS also provides Java-based development services. To deliver the level of responsiveness required by the U.S. military, CCIS follows an agile software development methodology, which is based on an iterative process of defining requirements, delivering code, adjusting requirements as a project matures, and frequent communication among project sponsors, developers, and users. When developing military solutions, we can t fail because it could put lives at risk, says David Moye, Chief Technical Officer at CC Intelligent Solutions. We stay responsive to client needs by embedding ourselves with them physically and by working in very short release cycles. In the past, CCIS used a mix of tools to support the development process, including the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET Professional development system, Concurrent Versions System (CVS) for source code control, and SourceForge Enterprise Edition for managing requirements, work items, and defect tracking. That mixed tool set, however, did little to support and streamline adherence to agile development principles. Instead, it hampered team output and impeded communication. Specific problems included: Lack of customization. SourceForge supported only predefined work item and defect types, preventing CCIS from customizing the software to support its own processes. Instead, CCIS had to use one work item type to mean something else for example, using tasks to represent usage scenarios. Similarly, the solution provider had to use a single defect type for both coding errors and suboptimal functionality, a single requirements type for both sponsor requirements and user requirements, and so on. Limited reporting. Reporting functionality in SourceForge was minimal, thereby limiting visibility into project status, hampering communication with clients, and creating extra work for project managers when assembling status reports. Project reporting and time-to-completion were based on personal estimates, says Moye. We tried to adopt burn-down charts to reflect progress made on development, but they required manually exporting data from SourceForge to a spreadsheet and massaging it to create the needed graphs. No integration. Neither SourceForge nor CVS integrated with Visual Studio, forcing developers to constantly switch between tools and preventing them from, for example, being able to associate a fixed defect or new feature with a set of changed files. Things were great when coding within Visual Studio, but the developer experience fell apart when doing anything

3 With all the information that developers need now at their fingertips, they re at least 10 to 15 percent more productive. else because of all the stand-alone tools, says Moye. Poor reliability. SourceForge ran on a Linuxbased server computer, which would sometimes fail for no known reason and require a restart. The Linux system was a disaster to support and maintain, says Moye. We spent hours per week just keeping it up and running. Even then, the performance of source code operations was pretty slow. Solution improved its adherence to agile development principles by adopting an application lifecycle management strategy enabled and supported by Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, which provides powerful role-based tools for all members of the development team, combined with a centralized repository for project data. The key components of Visual Studio Team System that CCIS is using include: Microsoft Visual Studio Team System rolebased editions, which provide tools tailored for each person s role in the development group. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite, which combines features of the various role-based editions for use by the company s software architects, who often play multiple roles. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, which provides a repository for all project data and deep visibility into all aspects of the application lifecycle. Now that we have the right tools, we re thoroughly embracing the application lifecycle model, says Moye. We ve abandoned SourceForge and CVS entirely, and haven t regretted it at all. Evaluation The company s evaluation of Visual Studio Team System began in mid-2005, when Moye put source code for some active projects into Team Foundation Server. Within a few days, he was able to show both management and developers that it offered several key advantages over the company s existing tool set. One thing that immediately stood out about Team Foundation Server was its flexibility specifically, the ability to customize work item types and other project artifacts to support our own way of working, says Moye. Another area that immediately caught Moye s eye was the built-in reporting features of Team Foundation Server. Up until then, we didn t know what we were missing in the area of reporting, says Moye. Today we have real-time access to advanced graphical indicators of project health. Other immediately apparent benefits were the speed of source code control operations and their full traceability. Increased speed is always nice, but the real benefit is in being able to associate files that are checked in with a specific feature request or work item and to easily come back and view that information at a later time, such as when debugging, Moye says. Moye informally compared his evaluation of Visual Studio Team System with his knowledge of development environments for Java. Eclipse has some good tools for text editing, compiling, and all that, but it offers little support for working as a team outside of source code control, says Moye. I ve never seen Java-based tools that can come close to the capabilities we now have.

4 If developers check in bad code, they ll know about it very quickly. It seems like we re spending a lot less time fixing bugs today and getting more done as a result. Deployment into Production After a one-month evaluation period, CCIS decided to move forward with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. Soon after that, the company began using Visual Studio Team System for all Windows -based software development. As of September 2007, source code and other data for five active projects reside in Team Foundation Server, which runs on a Visionman custom-built server computer with the Windows Server 2003 operating system, and is supported by a second Visionman server running Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database software. Approximately 50 people use one of the Visual Studio Team System client products namely, Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals, Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers, Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers, or Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite. Customers access the information in Team Foundation Server through its Web-based interface, as do developers who are located at customer sites and work remotely. CCIS has done consulting work helping several other companies adopt Visual Studio Team Foundation Server engagements in which Moye counsels clients to take a stepby-step approach to improvement. We recommend that a company start with source code control, spend some time figuring out how they want their projects structured, and then start to adopt some of the other capabilities of Team Foundation Server, says Moye. In reading up on best practices, I found two resources that were especially useful: Brian Harry s blog on the Microsoft Developer Network and Sam Guckenheimer s book, Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. Benefits By adopting a comprehensive strategy for application lifecycle management enabled and supported by Visual Studio Team System, improved its adherence to the agile development principles that help make the company successful. Developers, testers, and project managers are now more productive; software quality has improved; and communication and collaboration are stronger, in turn leading to increased customer satisfaction. In addition, the move to new development tools is helping the company better capitalize on the reason that it does most development on Microsoft software: its strength as an application platform. Having a consistent strategy and tool set for application lifecycle management has changed our culture, says Moye. We do some development process consulting for other companies, and the first thing that we tell them is Move to Visual Studio Team System it ll make your lives a lot easier. Consistent and Streamlined Application Lifecycle CCIS is using Visual Studio Team System to standardize and optimize the application lifecycle, resulting in a consistent environment where everyone does things the same way. The company was able to easily adapt the Microsoft Solutions Framework for Agile Software Development methodology template provided with Team Foundation Server, customizing it to support the way that CCIS works by decreasing the number of peer advocacy areas, adding new work item types, and so on. When combined with centralized data collection and reporting provided by Team Foundation Server, the customized template provides CCIS and its clients with real-time visibility into project status, including key performance and quality measures.

5 The reason that we do most projects in.net instead of Java is its strength as a complete platform for application development..net is where most smart developers do their thing, and we want to attract the best people. Process distribution and enforcement is now built into the team experience, along with real-time reporting on how well we re executing those processes, says Moye. As a result, we re able to focus more on the business of developing software and spend less time fighting the tools that we use to do so. And when we need information, it s now immediately available. Increased Team Productivity All members of the CCIS development group are now more productive, including developers, testers, and project managers. With all the information that developers need now at their fingertips, they re at least 10 to 15 percent more productive, says Moye. Project managers are benefiting even more because they no longer need to generate reports by hand for our daily team meeting. In the past, it took a few hours each day to generate the data needed for the meeting. Now they can get the same information with just a few mouse clicks. And testers are more productive because they have a better idea of what to test in each build and because developers are now less likely to check in bad code thanks to the new quality-enhancing capabilities provided by Visual Studio Team System, Moye adds. Improved Software Quality CCIS is delivering better software by catching problems earlier in the application lifecycle, and by improving the rate at which problems are found and corrected. Integrated analysis and profiling tools in Visual Studio Team System enable the detection of security and performance problems early in the lifecycle. Static code analysis tools help us find things that don t work before code is checked in, and have increased the quality of in-person code reviews by allowing us to spend that time looking at other things, says Moye. And the code profiling tools have been invaluable at isolating problem areas with respect to performance. When bugs do make it into the build, they are caught and corrected faster. CCIS now does continuous integration builds, where an automated build is done by Team Foundation Server each time code is checked in. Testers are provided with an automated notification, along with information on what has been changed, and can begin testing immediately. Similarly, developers are provided with notifications of the test results, or if the build has failed. Every time someone checks in code, it kicks off a build and runs thousands of automated unit tests, says Moye. If developers check in bad code, they ll know about it very quickly. It seems like we re spending a lot less time fixing bugs today and getting more done as a result. Better Collaboration and Communication Having a central repository for all project data has significantly improved collaboration. Automated notifications tell people when a work item changes and when code is checked in. Code changes are traceable to work items, bugs, or feature requests, making it easier for people to work together on the same project. Our universal code ownership approach helps avoid the you re in my code syndrome and reduces needed team sizes, says Moye. However, it can require extra coordination to keep from stepping on each others toes. Visual Studio Team System provides exactly that, allowing everyone on the team to be aware of what everyone else is doing. CCIS also is taking advantage of Visual Studio Team System to improve communication with clients, keeping them fully informed of project status, quality, and speed of delivery. The first project to fully utilize Visual Studio Team System was FusionNet, a knowledge management solution that we developed for the Army, says Moye. At the time, Visual Studio

6 Technology from Microsoft just keeps getting better and better, which is why it s our application platform of choice. Team System was still in beta, which was hard for our client to accept at first. One big selling point was improved visibility into the day-to-day workings of the project, which enabled the client to better track progress and know where its money was being spent. Since then, we ve done at least two dozen iterations on the project all with higher quality and better communication, Moye adds. Everyone is still under a lot of pressure to deliver, but today, when we go home, we know with a high level of certainty exactly where the project stands. Strong Application Platform With the application lifecycle now well in hand, CCIS is able to take advantage of the reason that it does most development on Microsoft software: its strength as an application platform. The reason that we do most projects in.net instead of Java is its strength as a complete platform for application development, says Moye..NET is where most smart developers do their thing, and we want to attract the best people. With Microsoft, we get the best in terms of user experience, data management, business intelligence, business process management, and software development all in a single, integrated technology and tool set. Visual Studio Team System makes a good thing even better, in that it enables us to fully exploit the benefits of the Windows platform. From a user perspective, we re really keen on Windows Presentation Foundation and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or AJAX, because they help us deliver a much better user experience. In the area of data management, we re really excited about Language Integrated Query, or LINQ, a set of extensions to the Microsoft.NET Framework that make writing code to access data much more intuitive and less complex. From a communications and integration perspective, we re using Windows Communication Foundation a great deal because it gives us an ideal way to implement the secure Web services required by the military. Technology from Microsoft just keeps getting better and better, Moye adds, which is why it s our application platform of choice. CCIS is an early adopter of the 2008 release of the Visual Studio development system, which will enable the company to capitalize even more on the strength of Microsoft software as an application platform. We already have one project that we re developing in Visual Studio 2008, which, together with other new software from Microsoft, gives us several powerful new capabilities as an application platform, says Moye.

7 For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) in the United States or (905) in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: For more information about CC Intelligent Solutions products and services, visit the Web site at: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 is the world s most popular development environment for designing, developing, and testing nextgeneration Windows-based solutions and Web applications and services. By improving the development experience for Windows, the Web, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office, Visual Studio 2005 helps organizations deliver a variety of solutions more productively than ever before. Visual Studio Team System expands the product line with new software tools that enable greater communication and collaboration throughout the development life cycle. With Visual Studio 2005, businesses can deliver modern service-oriented solutions more efficiently. For more information about Visual Studio 2005, go to: msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio Software and Services Microsoft Visual Studio Suite Edition for Database Professionals Edition for Software Developers Edition for Software Testers Foundation Server Microsoft Server Product Portfolio Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition Hardware Two Visionman custom-built server computers This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published November 2007