Introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Abel Wang

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers introductions. SeeRanger Index (Who is Who?)for more details.

Who are you?  

I started my software career at Compaq Computers in the 90’s.  By 2006, I worked in a variety of companies and also founded and sold my own software company.  After selling the company, this allowed me the flexibility to really explore, experiment and do what I really wanted to do. I was extremely curious with why most of the software projects that I was involved in have failed.  And by fail, I mean, they ran over budget, over time, riddled with bugs, not quite what the client wanted (even though all specs were followed) etc.  The easy answer was to say it was the Developers fault.  Except often times, the same core group of devs would be involved and some projects would fail and some would succeed.  My conclusion was that process played an important part in the success of a project.  This started my journey in ALM and software development processes. For the next seven years, I worked at Notion Solutions as a Process Consultant where I helped customers implement ALM using Microsoft tools, namely Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.  After Notion, it was a logical step to join Microsoft as a Sr. Consultant for Premier Developers specializing in ALM and App Dev.

What makes you tick?

There are three things that make me tick.  My family, writing code and music.  I was born into a computer science family.  My mom was a Computer Science professor at Purdue University and ever since I can remember, I’ve been making the computer do things with code.  My running joke is if I won the lottery, I would still be writing code.  Probably not for a specific company, but I would be writing code just because that is what I love to do.  My other passion is music.  I am a classically trained violinist and an avid guitarist.  Music makes my soul happy.  And finally, nothing is more important than my family.  My wife and two children really define who and what I am and why I do everything that I do.

Where do you live?

I live in Houston, Texas.

Why are you active in the Rangers program?

I have used the Ranger’s guidelines many times in the past and would love to give back to the ALM community.

What is the best Rangers project you worked in and why?

I have not worked in a Rangers project, but I am a big fan of the Branching and Merging guidelines from the Rangers.  I have used the Branching and Merging guidelines many times for a variety of clients.  It is an extremely clear and clean branching strategy that works for almost all scenarios.