Jaa

Team Foundation enters Ask Mode

  • Artikkeli

As we get closer to our eventual ship date for Team Foundation, one of the important milestones is the entry into what we call “Ask Mode”. It is the point in the project cycle where *every bug* is reviewed by a group of senior leaders on the team (folks like John Lawrence, Ed Hintz, Brian Harry, Kevin Kelly and others) to ensure that we’re fixing the right bugs in the right way to limit the risk of regressions. We do this by meeting daily and asking the program managers for each of the areas (say Work Item Tracking, Team Build, etc) to present the bug, customer impact as well as the details of the fix. Sometimes they bring developers or testers with them to help argue the case. Other times, they’ll bring graphics (attached to the bug of course) to help make the point. We insist that the fixes are available in a shelveset so that we can review the code changes in the meeting if necessary and that two code reviews have already been done outside the meeting. Test signoff is also required prior to our review. 

We then consider these details in the light of a predefined set of criteria to help us ensure that we’re making a set of coherent decisions. Some times the discussions are quick as the decision is obvious. Other times, the decision isn’t so clear and we haggle over the issue for a while. Eventually, someone, usually me, has to make the final call so that we can move on because we can’t afford to get stuck since dozens of bugs await our consideration.

It’s quite a process but so far has served us well. I’m not really looking forward to the investment in time it’ll require but I am looking forward to the end result.

Yet another step closer!

Woohoo!

jeff

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