• Full Length Interview
  
• Can't view the clips? Try the HTTP Stream
  

Questions

1. So, Lori, tell us a little about who you are and what you do here at Microsoft?
2. This is fairly a big deal for you guys. This is something that you've managed to keep under the radar for quite a while now I understand?
3. So, the question then, that is on everybody's mind is, what is Team System? What can it do? How will it change my life, as a developer?
4. So you've handled the project management aspects of Team System. What's there? What's part of all that?
5. It sounds a lot like Microsoft Project, and of course, we know Microsoft Project was just GANTT char central and everybody's a little bit scared of that. How is this different from what we're used to and what came before?
6. So, I want to stop you real quick. You've mentioned the term work item a couple of times. What, exactly, is a "work item"?
7. You've mentioned that we can use the existing tools that people are comfortable with. You'd mention explicitly Excel. I'm presuming tools like Word. Outlook?
8. You've mentioned the heightened integration with Excel. How exactly does that work? What exactly does that involve? Do I have to have Visual Studio installed on all the Project Manager's machines? What's going on with that?
9. And this is going to be like web portals?
10. All this stuff you're describing sound very heavy weight, very Capability Maturity Model supported, and so forth. And I'm a little concerned because I like a lot of the Agile methodologies, so am I going to have to change my methodologies in order to use this stuff?
11. So, what do you mean by, “being able to tweak and tune” your methodology? Is there some sort of code level thing I can do?
12. Now, you said the two out of the box were going to be a CMM and the also an Agile style. Is there a particular Agile style that you're following? Is this going to be XP? Or Scrum? Is this any of the other dozen or so different Agiles? Or is this just something you've evolved out yourself?
13. So how does all this stuff work from a developer's perspective? You've been talking a little bit about project managers and how they work. But it sound like there's going to be a lot of stuff that I, as a developer, have to do. How is all this stuff going to work for me, as a guy who slings code everyday?
14. So, we have to ask the question that I'm sure is on many people's minds. There's a lot of vendors out there, in this space already, who are building already some of these project management product methodology tools. What's going on with them? And how are they reacting? How are they taking this move on to this space, on the part of Microsoft? What are they doing?
15. So all this is open and docked. We can expect, hopefully, that a lot of the existing project management tools will plug into all of this stuff?
16. And all of that is going to be available for--I'm not thinking, principally of the Open Source community--people who want to plug into that, that's all going to be available?
17. So you've mentioned that there's a wide variety of reports that Project managers can generate based on all this data that's been stored into this repository. Are you concerned at all about Project Managements loosing sight of the forest from the trees, getting buried and inundated under all these reports and data and just can't get a good feel for the project because it's too much information?
18. 18. You've mentioned workflow and some process leveled management. Does this mean it's something I can script or all these work items will move around the various groups?
19. I assume that this is going to be a fairly easy question to answer. But how rich is all of this? How much can I control, in terms, of scripting the flow back and forth between devs and testers? And can I reach this all the way back to requirement analysis to people who prefer [water...
20. One of the things that concerns me and I think concerns a lot of the developers out here is, you can sort of imagine a lot of process going on here, you've talked about a lot of process management kinds of things and that works certainly well for large scale teams to varying degrees of success. What if I'm in a shop of two developers, can I still make use of this stuff?
21. Let me put it from this perspective. As a developer, if I just fixed a bug, you're telling me I don't have to actually go in to the bug reporting system and say I just fixed the bug and push the submit button. You can script out the work flow to do that for me?
22. You've sort of implied this but I want to call it up specifically? You've said, "We have these two coming out of box, but we can tweak and tune" and so forth? So, these are two pre-scripted flows that you guys have set up, I can mix and match between those two however I want, right? So, if I like requirements, but I really like Agile ones and we've moved out of requirements, I can completely mix and match between these two?
23. Speaking of reporting. What kind of reporting do we have in this?
24. Now, forgive me, but it almost seems like, as a developer, I don't ever have to leave my cube any more. And while certainly some people would say this is a good thing, certainly others would say this is a bad thing. What's your thoughts on that?
25. The extreme programming methodology which you've mentioned a couple times implies this notion of customer participation and the customer being a part of the development team. Can I use this as a way of opening up that customer participation? Does this work to that effect?
26. Last of all. Obviously you've been working with this thing for a while and I'm sure there are parts of the system that you have a particular predilection for, a particular fondness for. What's your favorite feature in Team System?
27. Thanks Lori, for your time and good luck with all that.