A while ago, I installed a pre-release version of EMC's (previously Conchango's) Scrum for Team System v3, using the RC version of Team Foundation Server 2010. Here are my first impressions.
Installation
Installation was a breeze. I installed the Process Template MSI on our server without a hitch.
Our environment was very simple, though:
- VMWare virtual machine, 2 GB RAM, single "CPU"
- Windows Server 2008 R2 x64
- TFS 2010 RC
Configuration
After installation, the SfTS Process Template Manager started and it was just a matter of clicking a few buttons to deploy the new templates to our existing Team Project Collection.
After that, we could create a new project based on the Scrum template using the Visual Studio Team Explorer.
Work Item Types
The first thing you notice after creating a new project, is that the Scrum template contains more types of work items than MSF-Agile:
| Work Item Type |
Scrum |
MSF Agile |
| Acceptance Test |
Yes |
No |
| Bug |
Yes |
Yes |
| Impediment/Issue |
Impediment |
Issue |
| Product Backlog Item |
Yes |
Yes ("User Story") |
| Acceptance Test/Test Case |
Acceptance Test |
Test Case |
| Release |
Yes |
No |
| Shared Steps |
Yes |
Yes |
| Sprint |
Yes |
No * |
| Sprint Backlog Task |
Yes |
Yes ("Task") |
| Sprint Retrospective |
Yes |
No |
| Team Sprint |
Yes |
No |
* : MSF Agile uses TFS' concept of an Iteration, but does not expose it as a Work Item.
We see that both templates, while supporting Scrum and being similar, approach the use of TFS differently. In TFS, every work item type is trackable, and you can calculate statistics and run reports on it. This means that the Scrum template can easily track and compare releases, sprints and even retrospectives. You can also specify which Release each Sprint belongs to.
I think it's unfortunate that MSF Agile 5 does not have a work item definition for Retrospective, but luckily, SFTS3 does.
Let's have a look at some of the Scrum template's work item types:
Work Item Type: Product Backlog Item
The MSF-Agile template's standard type for filling up the Product Backlog is the "User Story", whereas in Scrum it's the "Product Backlog Item". I think the "PBI" notation is better; after all, you don't only want to add User Stories to the PB.
The input form for a PBI is nice, as you can see below:
Scrum Template for Product Backlog Item
I prefer this over the MSF-Agile template because it leaves me more room to type my Description, History is a separate tab, and "Feature Scope" to me is clearer than "Area" — even though it is the same thing.
Work Item Type: Acceptance Test
When writing a user story — sorry, a PBI — you also add one or more Acceptance Tests that define what criteria need to be fulfilled for the PO/QA to accept the PBI as "done".
Scrum's Acceptance Test template is almost identical to MSF-Agile's Test Case. In the former, you can link any other work item to a test as a source of failure (such as a contradicting user story). In the latter, you can add a priority to the test. Both features are nice.
Areas and Iterations
The Scrum template does not prepopulate these TFS value trees. I think this is a good thing; it annoys me that MSF-Agile prepopulates the Iterations tree with 3 iterations, including report types, when I want to call my iterations "Sprints".
Work Item Hierarchy
The Scrum template supports TFS' new feature of hierarchical work items. That is, you can link one work item as a child of another. A typical example would be a Sprint Backlog Task that is a child of a Product Backlog Item.
Team Site
The Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) Team Site that the Scrum template produces is, alas, no more impressive than the one from MSF-Agile. In fact, they are nearly identical. I think there is a lot of opportunity for improvement here, both on the Conchango/EMC2 side and on the Microsoft side. Right now, if you want a really useful team site, you need Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2010, which provides a far richer team environment. We chose not to go that route, and used the WSS portal instead.
Of course TFS' built-in Team Web Access also works with team projects created with SFTS3.
No Visual Management
Unfortunately neither the team portal nor the Web Access site provides a visual interface for managing work items. But Conchango/EMC2 is preparing the Task Board application for just that purpose, priced at about $90 per developer (< 10 developers) down to about $76 (> 50 developers).
Third-party products like Urban Turtle can also fill that gap, priced at about $50 per developer. I will have a look at Urban Turtle later; I was not able to install the pre-release builds on our Team Foundation Server, but I'm sure now that Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 are released, Urban Turtle will not be far behind.
Compatibility with TFS 2010 RTM
In a test TFS environment, I upgraded a TFS 2010 RC with the prelease version of Scrum for Team System v3 to the RTM version of TFS 2010, and it worked without a hitch. This means the existing Scrum for Team System template works fine with the TFS RTM, and existing work items remain unchanged and continue to work just fine. I really like this; I feared it would be a real pain to migrate our project to the newer bits. It will probably also enable Conchango/EMC2 to release the updated bits of Scrum for Team System 3 quickly.
Early Conclusion
My, admittedly limited, experience with the Scrum for Team System v3 template is very positive, and we will definitely continue to use this template at my current customer. I think it is a much better fit for Scrum teams than Microsoft's MSF Agile is, and it has some nifty features such as the Retrospective work item type to complete the experience. Granted, there is some work to be done in the WSS Team Portal area, and I could not test the difference between Conchango/EMC2's template and Microsoft's when it comes to a SharePoint Server-based Team Portal. But all in all I can say that I think Scrum for Team System v3 is a winner.
