Visual WIP Beta 2 is now out!

New and improved UI and better custom visualization support

Visual WIP the Kanban visualization tool for Team Foundation Server that makes your Work In Progress (WIP) visible!

 

This is the second Beta release of Visual WIP as the API is stabilizing. Changes may be made to what framework Visual WIP will be built on and further UI changes will probably be made as well.

What’s new

• Pan and zoom is reset when loading settings
• Added support for work item type and size specific design
• The TfsWorkItemWorkProvider now adds support to open and edit work items.
• Work items looks more like sticky notes
• Auto loading of settings on the command line
• Auto refresh interval is moved to settings file

Implementation details

• WorkItemViewModel now inherits from DynamicObject to simplify work item field binding and error handling.
• Simplified event bubbling implemented
• Some out of memory problems has been addressed

Find out more and download at http://visualwip.codeplex.com

Some screen shots

A basic ToDo – Doing – Done board with no WIP limits.

A simple process with WIP limits. The Analysis and Development columns has to sub columns, Doing and Done, that share the WIP limit.

A three swim lane process with WIP limits

The settings window for a Team Foundation Server single query column. Team Foundation Server columns are populated based on Team Queries. Define your own or use existing ones.

Team Foundation Server work item editor. Double clicking on a sticky note on the board will bring up the work item editor for making changes and see more details.

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How to create a Cumulative Flow Diagram in Excel and TFS 2010

Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs) are valuable tools for tracking and forecasting the performance of your processes. In this post I will show you how you can create a Cumulative Flow Diagram in Excel that fetches the data from Team Foundation Server 2010 (TFS 2010).

Update
As been pointed out on the KanbanDev mailing list by Daniel Vacanti the approach of counting items per process stage is a simplified way to construct CFDs. Daniel points in his book Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability out that this approach only works when the following two conditions are satisfied:

1. Work items are not moved backward in your workflow.
2. Work items are never completely removed before they are completed.

Keep this in mind if you use this approach.

In this example I ‘m using a modified MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 template. I have added the following states to the User Story work item workflow:

• Analysis
• Analysis Done
• Development
• Development Done
• Test
• Deployed

Let’s get started.

Tutorial day at LSSC11–Implementing Continuous Flow

Today, Tuesday the 3^rd of May 2011, was tutorial day at Lean Software and Systems Conference 2011. I had decided to attend the tutorial Implement Continuous Flow by Joshua Kerievsky and John Goodsen.

I was really looking forward to this tutorial and had high hopes for it. But I’m sorry to say that it did not live up to my expectations. It was way to focused on software practices for me. I was expecting much more on how to make an organization transition to a continuous flow approach. In hind sight this was my mistake as I didn’t look at the speakers backgrounds.

I actually left the tutorial right after lunch as I found out that the tools show case track had been moved to Wednesday and I needed some more preparations. I’m could have missed all the interesting stuff in the afternoon but it sounded like there was more software practices on the agenda.

But all was not lost. I had a great time at the welcome reception meeting lots of people I have followed on Twitter for a long time and others that I just met. Great conversations with lots of interesting people.

Yesterday, on the Monday afternoon, just after I arrived to Long Beach I meet up with a big crowed of speakers and other attendees for some beer and some great and relaxed conversations.

Here is a sneak peek at a screenshot from my presentation tomorrow on Visual WIP.