Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System [Paperback]

Joel Semeniuk (Author), Martin Danner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2007

Get the practical reference for using Visual Studio Team System in your software development lifecycle—and maximize project success. Designed for software project managers, this book offers straightforward product information and expert insights for collaborating with architects, developers, and testers in one integrated development environment.

Discover how to use Team System to:

• Support key activities from the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK)
• Set up your team project using Microsoft Solutions Framework process templates
• Manage project activities, requirements, and risks
• Monitor and control scope, cost, schedule, and quality
• Customize role-based work items, queries, reports, and iterations
• Create a process improvement framework and fine-tune development efforts
• Plus—Learn details of Agile development and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Key Book Benefits:

- Delivers in-depth product information, both architectural and hands-on
- Provides insights from early users and experienced Visual Studio Team System trainers
- Provides pragmatic insights on how to plan and use Visual Studio Team System in the software development life cycle
- Features information for both experienced software-development project managers new to Visual Studio Team System and seasoned project managers new to software-development roles

About the Author

Joel Semeniuk is a Microsoft Regional Director with more than a decade of software project management experience. He has worked with Visual Studio Team System since its early development. Joel is the author of two other books on programming software and he blogs regularly about Visual Studio Team System.

Martin Danner, Microsoft Solutions Architect Most Valuable Professional, is an expert on process methodologies and project management with more than 20 years of experience. He worked as a consultant during development of Visual Studio and helped create the Microsoft Official Curriculum for Visual Studio Team System.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (April 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735622167
• ISBN-13: 978-0735622166
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Web Publishing

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a Practical Solution for teams to create quality software..., August 28, 2007

By 

Ramon Ayre "rayre1" (Winnipeg, MB, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (Paperback)

In Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, Joel really gets to the heart of addressing the reasons and benefits of having a common set of application lifecycle management tools (Visual Studio Team 2005 System) for all participants in the software development process to effectively track and report on individual and team progress.

It's not just the tracking and reporting, but its the metrics provided that allow answers to questions such as:" What percent complete are we at for this development project?; What's the overall software quality measurement?; How much more time is required before we are done?"

Not only does Joel discuss the problem of inter and extra-team communications for reporting on software development projects, he provides practical advice, examples and guidelines on how to implement and use Visual Studio 2005 Team System to orchestrate the communications and reporting processes for all roles (project manager, architect, developer, tester, sponsor, etc.) in the software development process.

A must read for anyone that manages Visual Studio.NET software development projects and wants to increase the effectiveness of their development efforts!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good on VSTS, lousy on process and requirements, September 30, 2007

By 

gyas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (Paperback)

This book provides a good overview of VSTS. It goes into enough detail that the reader understands the broad range capabilities without being overwhelmed. If you just want a reference on VSTS, then I recommend this book.

However, the book is just plain lousy when it comes to the process of managing an actual project. Firstly, PMBOK stands for "Body of Knowledge" not "Book of Knowledge". Secondly, the importance of gathering, analyzing, validating, and verify requirements is woefully under-represented. Quality is mentioned, but in such a cursory way as to be practically useless. Ditto on CMM - not enough detail is given on key processes and work products. The process here seems focused on building software without first determining what to build or checking the correctness of what was actually build.

The approach here might work on small greenfield projects, but would be a train-wreck on any large project with involving any degree of human safety, legacy systems, accountability, etc. In other words, the project management approach in this book is probably not suitable for 90% of projects in an enterprise IT environment.

4.0 out of 5 stars Well organized and useful, September 25, 2007

By 

Fabio M. C. Castro "Fabio Camara" (Sao Paulo, Brasil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (Paperback)

This book helped me with ideas that put in practice, provided new ideas of as it manages projects with VSTS. For me it was useful.