Scrum

Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Scaling Scrum with Nexus - Part 2

Scrum itself is a simple framework for effective team collaboration on complex products. While it is lightweight and simple to understand, challenges do arise.

Security

Log4J – A 10 step mitigation plan

There is already a lot of attention on the #Log4J vulnerability. It is all over the news while we write this blog. Many customers have asked us what to do. In this blog we give some advice on how to deal with the Log4j vulnerability and similar vulnerabilities in the future.

Azure DevOps Featured

Azure DevOps 2020 and 2019 (and 2018) patch for log4j vulnerability

Azure DevOps can be configured with advanced Code Search. That feature relies on Elastic Search. Depending on the age of your server, JVM version and Elastic Search version this may result in your setup being vulnerable to CVE-2021-44228.

Visual Studio 2022

Adding Visual Studio 2022 to Azure DevOps Server 2020

Visual Studio 2022 is out! But Azure DevOps Server hasn't had a release to support it yet. This means that in Azure Pipelines it won't detect your freshly installed copy of Visual Studio 2022.

git

Use Visual Studio 2022 as merge tool in Tower

Tower recently released a major upgrade of it's already outstanding Git Client. Microsoft shipped Visual Studio 2022 not too long ago either. This is how you integrate the two.

Azure DevOps

"Fixing" massive parallel builds on Azure Pipelines with TFVC

Last weekend I helped migrate a client from Team Foundation Server 2017 to Azure DevOps in the cloud. One of the many reasons to migrate was the ability to leverage the hosted pool to do builds and not having to maintain build servers.

Azure Pipelines

Renaming an Azure Pipeline task in an existing Azure DevOps extension

I have many Azure DevOps Extensions. Some recent, but also tasks dating back to 2015 when the extensibility model for build tasks forst appeared. Over time much has changed in Azure Pipeline Land...

Azure DevOps

Accessing Azure DevOps APIs with large volumes of data

Most REST APIs exposed by Azure DevOps are limited in the amount of data they will return. You can choose to override the default number by passing a $top=### query string parameter. Azure DevOps will try to honor this request, but I've seen it refuse and return a lower number anyway.

Scrum

Listen to the Scrum Master Toolkit Podcast

In december 2020 I was interviewed for the Scrum Master Toolkit, we explored many different aspects of the Scrum Master Role, listen to all of the episodes.

Scrum

Releasing the Nexus Guide 2020

Listen to the contributors discussing the latest version of the Nexus Guide.

git

Can't push to GitHub "Refusing to allow an OAuth App to create or update workflow without workflow scope"

When any of your commits contain a new or updated GitHub Action, you need to have the `workflow` scope to push these changes. Git Credential Manager for Windows doesn't request this.

Tips 'n Tricks

Automatically add referral tag to URLs with Clipboard Fusion

Recently Microsoft introduced the Docs & Learn program. You, the MVP and content creator, get a unique identifier to add to any url linking to a number of Microsoft websites, and they automatically track the engagement you generate.

azure-repos

Rename your master branch in Azure Repos

Renaming your master branch in Azure Repos could be as simple as a few clicks. But if you have complex policies or permissions in place, it may be a little more work. To rename your master branch you have to create a new branch and then delete the old one:

git

Rename your master branch to something better

I just went through my GitHub repositories to rid them of the master branches. It was a relatively simple process that took me about an hour or 2 for all my repositories. Scott Hanselman explains the base process. It's a simple set of steps to create a new

azure-artifacts

Create an Organization level feed in Azure Artifacts

A while ago the Azure DevOps team has removed the option to create "Organization level feeds" in Azure Artifacts. This move matches many previous efforts to isolate "projects" in Azure DevOps to make things less confusing and easier to migrate.

Scrum

97 Things Every Scrum Practitioner Should Know

Collective wisdom from the experts.

Azure Pipelines

What to do when your build hangs on the Hosted Pool...

When your build freezes and you can't remote into the agent... You're basically blinded...

Tips 'n Tricks

Enable your custom background on Microsoft Teams

Microsoft just shipped an update for Microsoft Teams. It has the option to insert one of a set of predefined images. And a hidden one to add your own!

TFS Migration

Package Feeds consuming most data in Azure DevOps Server

The Collection database of a client saw some explosive growth and I was asked to figure out where the storage had gone to.

git

Configure Tower to use the new Windows Terminal

The new Windows Terminal is almost done and the most recent build fixes the one bug that kept me from using it.

Tools

My tools of trade

Another two-and-a-half years have flown by and that means I've just received my new laptop. My Dell Precision 5520 has been traded in for a Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2 and I've just finished putting most op my must have tools on it.

Agile

Many funny agile movies

Some people just happen to learn more from short movie clips. And they can be a great way to bring some humor in. Please add your suggestions in the comments below. Scrum for SchmucksMy brutally honest summary of the Scrum framework for the typical dumb schmuck in the street.YouTube

msbuild Featured

99% of code isn't yours

Your own 1% is under source control, but are you keeping taps on all of the libraries you import each time you do a dotnet restore or npm install?

Scrum

Focus on what was "Done" during Sprint Review

As Scrum Trainer I get to meet a lot of teams and hear of many different ways to do Scrum. Most are valid ways, yet some seem more aligned with the values of Scrum or the purpose of the specific Scrum Element. In this post we'll have a look at the Sprint Review.

Scrum

Agile is dead?! Long live Agile

Last week I presented at Techorama 2019 in Ede, The Netherlands. A topic near to my heart, a reply to so many of the people saying that Agile is dead. Or Scrum or that SRE is the new DevOps.