Agile Sharepoint development by 21apps and Andrew Woodward MVP

Being an advocate of SharePoint as an application platform I looked long and hard for a decent implementation of a Scrum and have always been found wanting.  I have seen simple examples where any power user could set things up but found the lack of any Burndown charts meant you lost probably the most important part of Scrum - the visibility.

I have found that VersionOne is one of the best products on the market, although it has a lot of options which tends to put off new teams.

For those that use Team Foundation Server your probably going to head towards the Scrum for Team System developed by Conchango.  I’ve not used this in anger so am unable to comment on how well it works however this solution is not really a SharePoint specific solution as it requires you to make the commitment to using Team Foundation Server.

Bil Simser did a good post on scrum tools,  although its nearly 3 years old still has some good links.   Again however the tools are not specifically SharePoint.

Why the SharePoint Obsession?

SharePoint is the collaboration tool of choice, companies have deployed it and it is being used with varying degrees of success.  People have become familiar with the how to add items to a list, how to upload documents into a document library and for the more advanced how to build engaging dashboards.

What is the biggest thing you get from adopting scrum?  ‘Visibility’

What do you need to encourage to make Scrum work?  ‘Collaboration’

SharePoint is the natural platform choice on which to build a Scrum tool.

Introducing Project Aberdovey

As with all good development teams I think it is right that your development project should have a name,  and in keeping with some big companies in the Seattle area 21apps uses place names.   Aberdovey, or as it’s spelt in Welsh Aberdyfi, has probably one of the best beaches in the UK and is located 50 miles west of the office.

Put simply, Project Aberdovey is a Scrum tool for SharePoint.

There are a few aims for the project:

1. Produce a fantastic Scrum tool built on SharePoint
2. Develop the solution using agile techniques including TDD
3. Dogfood the solution as soon as possible - what better way to develop the right solution
4. Open development - I want to give feedback on the challenges but also welcome your input

I will be looking for ways to give people visibility,  I am looking at codeplex as an option but welcome any suggestions.

Do you write proposals?   do bug testing?   or write books? post blogs? or just need screen shots to help explain what you mean? 

If Yes then you need the latest version of SnagIt by TechSmith.   In it’s version 9 release SnagIt has moved from being just a good screen capture applet to being a fantastic, indispensable application that every good developer, author, tester etc etc should have installed.

It’s only when you start to use the new features without noticing you realise what a great piece of software you are using.   Having installed the V9 release a few weeks ago  I initially liked the OneClick pop-up that made switching capture modes a breeze,  but what I have found most useful is how SnagIt now keeps all my captures for me - no more having to save/or losing that key image. 

The Library view showing this weeks captures.  Whats really cool is any annotations are all stored and can be edited.  No more saving as a PNG and then having to fudge the text using Paint.

Tags

I only found this today, the ability to Tag captures using simple icons and allowing you to get find them quickly.

Whilst we’re on the subject of tools

Writing this blog post it suddenly dawned on me how many tools (all by different creators) I was using to bring this post to you.

SnagIt 

To capture the screen shots.   I have tweaked this slightly and  added another Program to the SnagIt Send to that allows me to send captures directly to Flickr Uploadr.

Flickr Uploadr

Making uploading images to Flickr just that little bit easier.   Why upload to Flickr you may ask,  well I user Windows Live Writer to author my blog posts

Windows Live Writer

This is one of the best bits of software anyone could install if they are serious about blogging.   The ability to link to multiple blogs, be able to recall existing blog posts for editing and correcting (yes it does happen). 

Here you can see me authoring this very blog post. 

But wait wasn’t I telling you why I used Flickr?   Yes,  and if you look closely at the right hand menu you will see some nice Insert options, one of which is Insert Flickr Image.

Flickr for Writer

This neat plug in allows you to insert Flickr images directly from Flickr,  normally this is defaulted to my account but you can also insert others.

There are many more tools that I use day to day,  some more aimed at development some at just getting things done.   Hopefully this Top Tool Tips post will help you become a better blogger