In my previous post, I lamented about some of the problems I’ve had with Team Foundation Server 2010. I ended it with a brief nod to Team Foundation Service. It’s a relatively new service offered on the cloud, and I’d like to review it and tell you what I think.
There are quite a few things that have changed, albeit for the better I think.
Having never played with Team Foundation Server 2012, I’m not at all sure which of the features I’m about to discuss were included in that version or not. Look at it from my perspective as a user coming directly from version 2010. There are quite a few things that have changed, albeit for the better I think. Here’s a quick run-down of the things I’m about to cover:
- Dashboard view
- Features
- Backlog and sprint boards
- Team member capacity
Let me just say that I’m a big fan of the flat look Microsoft has going on. Gradients and shadows can be cool and all, but I prefer simple and clean. As you might guess, I really like the design of the dashboard. It gives you a complete overview of your project and links to all the important meat therein. Simple and clean.
I’m not sure if I like Features as a part of TFS yet or not. Forgive me if I’m uninformed, but features seems like a layer of abstraction over the product backlog items. A container that you can group like program backlog items (PBI) into. Am I completely wrong, or only partly right? Someone feel free to educate me.
I can now tell a PBI from a task at a glance!
The backlog is where we live and breath in agile development, and I’m happy about the changes they’ve made here. The forecast feature is totally epic. I like to play with the velocity number to see how the sprints move about. More importantly, thank you for the color-coded swatches next to each item in the list. I can now tell a PBI from a task at a glance!
Finally, team capacity is a very useful update to TFS. After using it, I’ve had a tough time going back to using the 2010 version. The experience ends with one of those realizations you have in life where you wonder how on Earth were you able to perform such a task before without this feature. That’s how I feel about team capacity. It helps plan work among your team members in a meaningful way, and the bar charts tell you visually how well you are utilizing their time.
In summary, Team Foundation Service is a big improvement over Team Foundation Server 2010. I would gladly migrate all of my projects to this service. If only I could talk my boss into letting me do it. Let’s save that for another discussion.