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.

Visual WIP a kanban board for TFS

About Visual WIP

Visual WIP is a visualization tool to make your Work In Progress (WIP) visible. The visualization is a card-wall with stickies in different columns.

If work-in-progress limits are set for a column the same amount of kanban’s(slots/placeholders) are added to the column. If more work is added to the column than the set work-in-progress limit the column background will change color.

The main goals of Visual WIP is to:

• Visualizer a process work-in-progress by using strong visual signals with a card wall metaphor.
• Utilize multi monitors to enable to both show an overview from more that 10 feet’s and show detailed information when closer.
• Use a plug-in model to enable customization and support different electronic backing systems. The main focus is to support Team Foundation Server 2010 but SharePoint is also in the roadmap.
• Not tied to a specific process as Kanban can be applied to any process. Currently MSF for Agile for Team Foundation Server 2010 is the process that Visual WIP is developed against.

See progress by following the Visual WIP tag or go to the project at VisualWIP.codeplex.com

You can also follow Visual WIP at twitter @VisualWIP 

Project status

Since my last status report the following major changes has been made:

• You can now save and load the board design.
• A new size and positioning that uses drag and drop
• Two new column types are added
• Rich text – add any kind of rdf based text to your board. Add check lists, definition of done and more
• Uri – add a html or xaml based page to the board. Add reports from TFS, twitter pages and more
• The xaml based board design is more or less moved to run-time loaded xaml files that you can customize to fit you needs
• Support for modifying column setting after they are added is almost done but not activated.
• Showing Avatars based on the name of the person assign to a work item
• Some GUI changes

Here are some screen shots:

 

I’m looking for feedback so please comment here or at http://visualwip.codeplex.com/discussions