Suggested Resources


Below is a list of blogs, books, training, and other resources you may find helpful to learn more about Microsoft development tools. If you know of something that should be added here, let us know!


Jump to:   Blogs   Books   Other Sites   Training & Videos  

Blogs


Brian Harry
Brian Harry is "the guy" at Microsoft for Team Foundation Server.  (updated 8/26/2009)

Rob Caron
Rob Caron's blog - a great dev tools resource!  (updated 6/24/2009)

Bruno Terkaly
Bruno is the Developer Evangelist in Northern California.  (updated 6/24/2009)

William Salazar
William Salazar is the Developer Technology Specialist for Southern California and Hawaii.  (updated 6/3/2009)

Gert Drapers
Gert's blog about all things Team System Database Edition.  (updated 3/11/2009)

Steve Lange
Steve Lange is the Developer Technology Specialist for Colorado, Arizona, Utah, S. Nevada, New Mexico, Wyaoming, and Montana.  (updated 6/24/2009)

Brian Keller
Brian Keller is a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. Brian is based in Redmond, Washington.  (updated 4/9/2009)

Buck Hodges
Buck Hodges' blog  (updated 3/11/2009)

Joe Shirey
Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist based in Denver, Colorado.  (updated 6/3/2009)

Manish Agarwal
Manish Agarwal's blog  (updated 6/24/2009)


Books


Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
This guide shows you how to get the most out of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server to help improve the effectiveness of your team-based software development. Whether you are already using Team Foundation Server or adopting from scratch, you'll find guidance and insights you can tailor for your specific scenarios. NOTE: This book is also available for download (FREE) at http://www.codeplex.com/tfsguide  (updated 4/1/2009)

Team Foundation Server Recipes
Team Foundation Server Recipes contains an evolving series of recipes that will enable you to quickly install Team Foundation Server (TFS) and begin to customize tools to fit your software development process. The book is an excellent guide for doing the many tasks required to make TFS and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) an integral part of any software development life-cycle process. Plenty of examples cover a range of features within TFS, and you can easily adapt the featured processes to your organization's best practices. Recipes include fixing common install problems, creating custom work items with strong state transition rules, building custom event handlers for extending the functionality beyond the default feature set, and more. You can utilize each recipe independently, though the sequence of recipes provides a natural implementation flow that's easy to adopt. Rest assured that all examples are based on real-world implementations, not just theory. And the examples cross many functional roles within an IT department, benefiting release managers, project managers, test teams, development teams, and consultants in the field. In summary, you'll be sure to refer to your copy of the book repeatedly as your implementation evolves.  (updated 3/27/2009)

Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System
"Visual Studio .Net Team System" (VSTS) helps project heads and developers work together more efficiently when they create enterprise level applications. Unlike many other products, VSTS is designed to work across the whole of the project’s life cycle. As a result, many applications are included within the system, including a suite of modeling tools, a logical operations manager, a source-code control and versioning system, and build, unit and load testing software. This book will help readers grasp the complexities of the new software and maximize its potential.  (updated 3/27/2009)

The Enterprise and Scrum
Get the practical guidance you need to apply Scrum enterprise wide--straight from a leader and innovator in the agile process movement. Agile development methods, such as Scrum, have been shown to produce improvements in speed, quality, and cost. However, the practices within Scrum, such as self-managing teams, are often so different from the norm at most enterprises and cause an organizational reaction. The productivity and quality benefits of Scrum pose a compelling reason to make such changes--moving it from the small team to the enterprise level. And as Scrum crosses to the mainstream, executives need to know how to manage the necessary change processes. In addition, managers and employees alike want to know what the change means to them, personally. With case studies and pragmatic approaches, this book shows development managers and developers how to extend Scrum from one or two projects within an engineering organization to the larger enterprise. It also addresses the questions that newcomers have regarding process, interaction, reports, habits, tradeoffs, and more.  (updated 3/27/2009)

Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System is written for any software team that is considering running a software project using Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), or evaluating modern software development practices for its use. It is about the value-up paradigm of software development, which forms the basis of VSTS: its guiding ideas, why they are presented in certain ways, and how they fit into the process of managing the software lifecycle. This book is the next best thing to having an onsite coach who can lead the team through a consistent set of processes. Sam Guckenheimer has been the chief customer advocate for VSTS, responsible for its end-to-end external design. He has written this book as a framework for thinking about software projects in a way that can be directly tooled by VSTS. It presents essential theory and practical examples to describe a realistic process for IT projects. Readers will learn what they need to know to get started with VSTS, including • The role of the value-up paradigm (versus work-down) in the software development lifecycle, and the meanings and importance of “flow” • The use of MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for CMMI Process Improvement • Work items for planning and managing backlog in VSTS • Multidimensional, daily metrics to maintain project flow and enable estimation • Creating requirements using personas and scenarios • Project management with iterations, trustworthy transparency, and friction-free metrics • Architectural design using a value-up view, service-oriented architecture, constraints, and qualities of service • Development with unit tests, code coverage, profiling, and build automation • Testing for customer value with scenarios, qualities of service, configurations, data, exploration, and metrics • Effective bug reporting and bug assessment • Troubleshooting a project: recognizing and correcting common pitfalls and antipatterns This is a book that any team using or considering VSTS should read.  (updated 3/27/2009)

Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System
This book is a practical guide to using the integrated tools in Visual Studio Team System to manage a team-development process. Project managers typically use a wide range of tools—such as Microsoft Office Excel®, Microsoft Office Project, and Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services. The Visual Studio Project Management Tools are integrated with the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE), Office, Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services. This helps enable project managers to continue using the tools with which they are comfortable, yet easily share their development-oriented project data with their teams—allowing architects, developers, testers, and project managers to collaborate in a single, extensible environment. With in-depth product information and insights from early users and experienced Visual Studio Team System trainers, this guide will help you understand how to use this tightly integrated set of life-cycle development tools to help enable better planning, scheduling, collaboration, communication, reporting, and process control with development projects.  (updated 3/27/2009)

Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System
With the introduction of Visual Studio 2005 Team System (VSTS), Microsoft for the first time offers software developers and test engineers a complete and integrated suite of tools for software testing. This authoritative book shares with you best practices for software testing using VSTS test and development tools and covers all phases of the development lifecycle so that you may learn how to implement these practices. Written by key members of the team that developed the VSTS test anddevelopment tools, this essential resource offers a no-nonsense introduction to using the tools the way they were meant to be used. The authors walk you through the overall user interface of the Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers and Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers. You'll explore each of the available test types and learn how to effectively use the code analysis and dynamic analysis tools to quickly become effective as a software developer or test engineer.  (updated 3/27/2009)

Software Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008
Software Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2008  (updated 3/27/2009)

Team Foundation Server 2008 in Action
In complex software projects, managing the development process can be as critical to success as writing the code itself. A project may involve dozens of developers, managers, architects, testers, and customers, hundreds of builds, and thousands of opportunities to get off-track. To keep tabs on the people, tasks, and components of a medium- to large-scale project, most teams use a development system that allows for easy monitoring, follow-up, and accountability. Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 (TFS), the server component of Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), provides a powerful collaborative platform for software-development teams. The product offers an integrated toolset for tracking work items, creating test cases, managing source code, generating builds, constructing database schemas, and so on. Because in software development one size does not fit all, TFS provides process customization, project management, and reporting capabilities to build solutions around your requirements. Team Foundation Server 2008 in Action is a hands-on guide to Team Foundation Server 2008. Written for developers with a good handle on TFS basics, this book shows you how to solve real-life problems. It's not a repetition of Microsoft's product documentation. Team Foundation Server 2008 in Action is a practitioner's handbook for how to work with TFS under common constraints. This book walks you through real-life software engineering problems based on hundreds of hours of TFS experience. You'll benefit from expert author Jamil Azher's extensive interactions with members of Microsoft's TFS team and MVPs, survey feedback from the author's blog, and interviews with organizations and user groups using TFS. Instead of just offering a high-level overview, the book provides detailed solutions for solving common-and not-so-common-problems using TFS. It discusses the strengths as well as weaknesses of TFS, and suggests appropriate problem resolution steps, workarounds, or custom solutions.  (updated 3/27/2009)


Other Sites


Team System Cafe
Team System Cafe - a great place for VSTS information.  (updated 2/11/2009)

Visual Studio Product Page
The official product page for Visual Studio.  (updated 10/27/2010)

Team System Widgets
A comprehensive list of utilities, integrations and other "widgets" for different versions of Visual Studio.  (updated 10/27/2010)

MSDN & Expression Subscriptions Comparison
Compare the various MSDN and Expression subscription benefits.  (updated 3/11/2009)

Team Foundation Server 2010 Installation Guide
Team Foundation Server 2010 Installation Guide  (updated 10/27/2010)

Team Foundation Server 2005 Installation Guide
Team Foundation Server 2005 Installation Guide  (updated 3/27/2009)

Team Foundation Server 2008 Installation Guide
Team Foundation Server 2008 Installation Guide  (updated 3/27/2009)

VS 2010: Modeling your Application
Creating models in Visual Studio Ultimate helps you ensure that your application meets its users' needs. You can create models at different levels of detail and relate them to one another, to tests, and to your development plan. You can create and develop models throughout the application lifecycle as part of the development process.  (updated 10/27/2010)

VS 2010: Planning and Tracking Projects
By using Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), you can manage customer needs more effectively. You can create a high-level plan that breaks your project down into potentially shippable increments, and you can create detailed plans to execute shorter iterations in which you develop those increments.  (updated 10/27/2010)

VS 2010: Developing your Application
You perform tasks that involve modifying your application or database code to meet a specific goal and verifying that your changes do not adversely affect other parts of your application. When you or your teams develop an application, you can use Visual Studio Premium or Visual Studio Ultimate to perform common tasks that include implementing features, fixing bugs, coding, and so on. You perform tasks such as these independent of which development process or methods that you follow. In many processes, developers perform design, development, and test tasks repeatedly over the course of an iteration, milestone, or development cycle.  (updated 10/27/2010)

VS 2010: Building your Application
With Team Foundation Build, you can create build definitions to automate compiling applications, running associated tests, performing code analysis, releasing continuous builds, and publishing build reports.  (updated 10/27/2010)

VS 2010: Virtual Lab Management
Visual Studio Lab Management is an extension of Microsoft Test Manager that helps you to optimize the use of Microsoft Hyper-V technology to manage and use virtual machines in testing, building, and developing applications in Visual Studio 2010. Visual Studio Lab Management is integrated with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to enable you manage multiple physical computers that host virtual machines and to manage the storage of virtual machines, virtual machine templates, and other configuration files in SCVMM library servers.  (updated 10/27/2010)

Team System Best Practices Guide
The "patterns & practices Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server" in soft copy.  (updated 3/11/2009)

Team Foundation Server SDK
Information about the Team Foundation Server SDK.  (updated 10/27/2010)

Team System Rocks
The Team System Rocks site has several videos and tutorials.  (updated 3/27/2009)

TFS Branching Guide 2.0
Insightful and practical guidance around branching and merging with Team Foundation Server. It's a collaborative effort by VSTS Rangers in cooperation with VSTS MVPs, Microsoft Services, and VSTS Product Team.  (updated 4/9/2009)

Visual Studio LightSwitch
Visual Studio LightSwitch  (updated 10/27/2010)


Training & Videos


Notion Solutions etraining
Notion Solutions has created a Subscription training centric to Team System. Learn Team System at your pace, from wherever you want, it's that simple! Also, subscribe on a monthly basis to keep up to date on new videos and labs as they are released. Contact Notion Solutions at sales@notionsolutions.com or 972.607.4830 to purchase. eTraining content can also be licensed for a flat fee for sitewide deployment for your organization.  (updated 2/11/2009)

ALM Catalyst
These FREE workshops are designed to enable development teams and achieve these key goals: Understand the potential of Team Foundation Server in the Enterprise Identify gaps in current use of Team Foundation Server Create higher-quality, applause-generating software - with less time and stress  (updated 6/3/2009)

QuickLearn
Get Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server ALM training from the experts in TFS and ALM training solutions. Our Visual Studio 2010 TFS courses will quickly have your teams up and running with Team Foundation Server and other Visual Studio 2010 ALM tools. We offer training for solutions architects, project managers, developers, testers, and IT professionals.  (updated 8/22/2011)

InnerWorkings
Innerworkings  (updated 2/12/2009)

Notion Solutions VSTS Videos
Notion Solutions has put out some great videos about Team System. Here are there archives.  (updated 6/3/2009)

Microsoft eLearning
Official Microsoft E-Learning products provide a thorough learning experience by incorporating features designed to improve your product proficiency and boost your productivity. Assessments, hands-on virtual labs, expert advice, and an interactive, non-linear approach all contribute to make Microsoft E-Learning an engaging and flexible learning experience  (updated 3/27/2009)