Author Archives: Steven Borg

About Steven Borg

I'm a technology geek with a strong passion for process, teamwork and the "soft" skills that drive excellent software development teams. Over the past few years I've experienced both brilliant and abysmal software teams. My goal, right now, my burning desire is to improve the lot of the coder. Working in a good team is exhilarating, energizing and fun. It is also far more productive than the alternative. No developer should be left in a poor development team, not when they can be turned around. Turned around and made great!

Using Excel for Team System Reporting – Video

Posted on December 15, 2008 by Steven Borg

I created a short video to demonstrate how to use Excel 2007 to create a cumulative flow diagram (often called Remaining Work) that gets its data directly from the OLAP cube used by Team System (TfsWarehouse).  The video is currently … Continue reading →

Posted in Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Requirements are not dead.

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Steven Borg

Hearing many of my fellow agilists talk, you’d think requirements management, and even requirements themselves, have shuffled off their mortal coil.  Unless, of course, they are provided on a 3×5 card and ranked in a one-dimensional, user prioritized stack.  Let … Continue reading →

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MVP TV rescheduled

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Steven Borg

Unfortunately, the MVP TV session “Gaze Into the Crystal Ball: Reporting in Team System” session had to be rescheduled due to a malformed URL being sent to the attendees.  Not too many folks were able to make it into the … Continue reading →

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The Microsoft Borg

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Steven Borg

I’m heading to Portland to give a presentation on Team Build 2008, and an announcement went up on the Portland Area .NET User Group mailing list.  This was one of the replies, which gave me quite a few laughs!  Hat … Continue reading →

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Why is the Estimated Work field not available in TFS Reports?

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Steven Borg

The Estimated Work field is used to maintain the estimate for a Task work item in the MSF for CMMI Process Template.  However, if you’re creating your own report, you’ll find that it’s missing from the available data from both … Continue reading →

Posted in FUQ | 1 Comment

AgileBUG – The Agile Beer Users Group

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Steven Borg

Tonight I attended the Agile Beer Users Group, or AgileBUG for short.  It was a loose get-together hosted by John (who’s last name was quickly forgotten after the first beer…  apologies, John).  Very informal, yet filled with a lively assortment … Continue reading →

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Our Upcoming VSTS Events

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Steven Borg

Although you can always visit our website, and look at our Upcoming Events page to see a list of our upcoming events.  However, here’s a quick summary of many of the events we’re either running or participating in until the … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, Source Control Management, team build, Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System | Tagged | Leave a comment

Free VSTS Training – Lap around VSTS 2010 / Rosario

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Steven Borg

On December 4, 2008, Northwest Cadence will be sponsoring a free “Lap around VSTS 2010 / Rosario” session, here in our Kirkland offices overlooking Lake Washington.  Come hear about the latest information about VSTS 2010 (AKA Rosario) from Jeff Levinson, … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, Requirements, Source Control Management, team build, Team Foundation Server | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

VSTS Training – Building Applications using Visual Studio Team System 2008

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Steven Borg

We’re running our VSTS 5-Day course again, here at our offices at Northwest Cadence on December 8-12, 2008.  Get ready for a new year of VSTS productivity by learning the deep ins and outs of VSTS 2008! Here’s a brief … Continue reading →

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MVP TV – Gaze into the Crystal Ball: Reporting in Team System made Easy

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Steven Borg

All the Interaction of the MSDN Chats but with the richer experience of Live meeting and hosted by the recognized world technology leaders –the Visual Studio Team System Microsoft MVP’s. – Charles Sterling on MVP TV I’m on TV!  MVP … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, team build | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Portland, OR: Enterprise Build Automation with VSTS 2008 Team System and Team Build

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Steven Borg

If you’re in the Portland, Oregon area, I’ll be speaking on Enterprise Build Automation.  Drop by this free event and learn the characteristics of an Enterprise Build Automation tool, the process to follow, and how to set up automated builds … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, team build, Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team System | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Python – Powerful, but terse

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Steven Borg

I’ve heard Python is “wrist-friendly”.  It is!  So, basically I needed to create a quick application to merge some text files into an HTML template to update a web site with new content easily.  (Yes, I’ve heard of dynamic web … Continue reading →

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TSWA 2008 SP1 Released

Posted on August 29, 2008 by Steven Borg

Ed Hintz just announced the release of Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 (TSWA)!  Head on over to the TSWA download site to get it!  And check out Ed Hintz’ blog post for the news!  Of special note is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Speeding up your Team Builds

Posted on August 17, 2008 by Steven Borg

Tom Janssen is a Senior Consultant covering ALM in Munchen, Deutchland (Munich, Germany for us English speakers).  I thought it was worth highlighting his comment to the Team Build Breakfast post.  It linked to one of his blog posts that … Continue reading →

Posted in team build | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Location, location, location… and atmosphere!

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Steven Borg

I love my job!  Today I walked to work with my 5 week old son, Bodie.  As I pushed his stroller we both looked around at the Kirkland downtown.  So many trees, so many water views.  Then we got the … Continue reading →

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