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Ian_Donaldson
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Joined Aug 19, 2019
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Bug as Peer AND/OR Child (rather than one or the other)
It'd be better if I could have Bug as a Peer (of workitems) AND/OR a Child of a workitem; rather than one OR the other. It would enable me to reflect reality better: - Bug1 was detected as part of delivering Story A, so we log it as a child. Some time later realise or decide we're not going to solve it before release; and change it to peer (add to backlog). - Bug2 was reported in production, so we log it as a peer (of other backlog items). So that it can be ranked and added to sprint like any other item.837Views0likes0CommentsBoard: Items don't show the Testing mini-module
"Board" has a really neat feature: it can show an icon summarising the count of linked Test Cases. It ensures we can really good visibility of the test-plan and outcomes for User Stories as part of our sprints. However, it will only activate if we quick-create a test from that mini-module 😞 We nearly ALWAYS link our User Story's to pre-existing Test Cases. But the tests mini-module doesn't appear in this case (as mentioned above, we have to interact with the quick-create. So we dutifully create a "dummy" test item [which we subsequently delete]. It seems to be "by-design". But the teams are experiencing this as a Quirk (bug). Could it be made to behave as: When displaying the Items on the Board, if an Item has any items linked using "Tested By", auto-activate/show the Tests Mini Module on the Board?1KViews0likes1CommentRe: State Mapping for Azure Feature
Bear in mind the Board will show Items, but you can't show Features at the level (or vice cersa). 1. On the Board look for the Items/Features dropdown to switch ;), and/or 2. You might find it best to simply add the Parent field to your Cards on the Story/Items level board.824Views0likes0CommentsRe: Active state vs In Development
Depends which of the 4 process-types you're using, and whether any custom process has been applied to the process your project is using. More here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/work-items/workflow-and-state-categories?view=azure-devops&tabs=scrum-process#category-states1.1KViews0likes0CommentsRe: SLA tracking in DevOps
For the operational day-to-day/hour-by-hour activities I presume you're already using Board with columns representing your key workflow steps, and making liberal use of the Card Rules feature (available in settings) to make cards the criteria you mentioned standout. E.g. "Severity" (custom field) = Critical show as, say, Red; and so on. Consider having an "ambulance" Swimlane for special cases 😉 For the SLA reporting end, the Cumulative Flow diagram (available in the Board Analytics) could provide a quickest overview. (I typically take screenshot, paste into PPT and add synopsis comments on trends/anomalies/exceptions). Regarding Dashboards, the Charts Widgets are particularly useful/powerful. But for the kind of analysis/insights you mention I'd think I'd also be exporting the results set to Excel so that SLA meta-data can be used to color-code or report on met/not-met etc. If/once that becomes a stable regular thing then I'd consider doing it using PowerBI.7.2KViews0likes0CommentsRe: how to rename a custom field
Myself I don't think it's possible to change key characteristics of Custom Fields once they've been created. Whenever I've needed to change a Customer Field I've had to go through a process of creating a new equivalent, migrating the old field data over to the new, and then removing the old custom field. A real pain, but necessary to maintain the integrity of the db/app.5.2KViews0likes1CommentRe: Report for tasks moved from one Sprint to another
Hi Sindi, re "Carried" tags: Scrum guide says to return incomplete sprint Items to the backlog. In practice, some teams will continue them next sprint. If a "Carried" tag is added to those Items (say, during Sprint Planning), it gives a way to filter the Board and Backlog by Tag, and you'd see all the Item with Carried tag. So, although not a "report", you can get a list/view.9.6KViews0likes1CommentRe: Gaging team mood about sprint
re: >> team mood reading ... just something we can use before a retro Consider using the Retrospectives extension from marketplace, which includes an optional Team Assessment option. It's very good: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-devlabs.team-retrospectives1.6KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Velocity Reports Across Projects
I know of a way, but I'm curious what you intend to do with it? As a {who} I want {velocity information across multiple projects within my organization} So that {please advise..} I'd add: one you get the info across teams, you might be in for some surprises. Although ADO provides ways to calculate Velocity, quite often teams might not be using ADO the required way for it to calculate accurately. For example I have Teams that have had to forego the cool Velocity features in ADO because we need to use the Closed state to track to Released (rather than Done). {I believe there are separate feature request tickets elsewhere to address that}.1.9KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Report for tasks moved from one Sprint to another
None that I know of. I initially thought this would be easy. I.e. Query items with Iteration Path = currentIteration, and WAS EVER in previousIteration clause (or specify Iterations is necessary). Alas, the WAS EVER option doesn't seem to be available for the Iteration Path (Sprint) field 😞 There'd be a way using PowerBI consuming an Analytics view (with [include item History] option). But that's a disproportionate amount of effort (unless you're using it for other insights) 😞 I'd also be keen to know if anybody else finds an easy way. Meantime, a couple of alternatives/crutches: - We've added "Activation Date" field to Backlog Columns and Board Cards. It makes an Items age a bit more visible. That field gets auto-populated when Item moves from New to any In Progress state (if it's not standard, then we added a trigger or process-rule]. On the Board we color-code cards that have Activation Date > N days. - I heard of some teams that add a "Carried Once", "Carried Twice" (and so on) Tag to Items as part of Sprint changeover. Thus giving visibility and options to Query/filter (... and more importantly, the option to do analysis and discussion about what might be going on with carried items).9.6KViews0likes3CommentsRe: Azure workflow between sprints
yeah that sounds like unnecessary admin hell. Instead do like Scrum guide advises: "If a Product Backlog item does not meet the Definition of Done ... it returns to the Product Backlog for future consideration". If the Item indeed changed significantly from it's original, then yeah, it might be worth abending/withdrawing the old and create a new clean/clear Item (but those Points shouldn't contribute to that Sprints velocity). Usually what's going on in the behaviour you describe is: the team or SM want/need their velocity to look good (i.e. take credit for work done - even though the Item isn't Done). Encourage the team to be more transparent about work which didn't complete - this Transparency is principle#1 with Scrum 😉 Flesh out what the Teams is afraid of by doing this? Managements wrath because some vanity metric? It's ok, the Item will usually complete in the next Sprint and that sprint has higher points, but always look at the *average of points across N sprints* (never the velocity of any single sprint).975Views0likes0CommentsRe: Closed cards vanished from the boards
It does that for the first column and last column, to enable the board loadtime to be reasonable. (Those columns may typically contain humungous amounts of cards, over time). You might have missed it (many people don't notice), but there's a "Show more items" link after the last card. Click that, and you can keep retrieving the next set of cards. Myself, when there's something we're looking for which is Closed we're more likely to use Search or Query.1.3KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Work Item Customizations
Be sure to read the documentation about how Bugs behave differently in ADO depending on how they're configured for the project (i.e. peers or children of Items). I'm using custom Fields and custom workflow states without problem for years, but you really need to be across the documentation, and trying your changes out in a test-project first ;): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/backlogs/manage-bugs?view=azure-devops1.2KViews0likes1CommentRe: What strategies do people use for keeping Test Cases up to date in Azure DevOps?
Rather than use the "Azure Test Plans" module (which has a silly licencing/pricing arrangement, and would complicate our use of DevOps); we use the Test Case features available with the Basic licence. We introduced a new Work Item Type called "Test Set" as a simple way to group Test Cases (similar to a Suite, but we don't call it that to avoid confusing them). Test Cases have State. We use it to indicated: Design(writing), Ready, or Closed (removed/withdrawn). We get the test outcome visibility using the "Tests mini-module" that can be activated for any Item shown on the Board. This jives well with our sprint-based way of working. Yeah keeping Test Cases up to date is a tricky part. The whole team gets value from Test Cases (especially for pre-existing / installed-user-base services they may not be familiar with yet) - but few want to write or update them lol. Alas, if team wants the output (value), they do the input (writing/maintaining), lol. It's "their product". The key opportunities for that which we find: 1) During backlog refinement / Story make ready. 2) Throughout the sprint 🙂 Liaise with team to consider making "TC's Ready" part of Definition of Ready. And, "TC's up to date" part of Definition of Done.1.6KViews0likes0Comments
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