In August 2014 Team Foundation Consulting celebrated its 4th anniversary. As the only consultancy in SA focussed solely on ALM it certainly puts us in a unique position as we really service a very specific target market.
I will be the first to admit that when it all started in 2010, TFS was not as well received as it is 4 years on. Clients were apprehensive having consistent problems with Visual Source Safe and then trying to install TFS 2005 and TFS 2008. TFS 2010 slowly had clients coming around as they were finally able to get what they expected out of TFS. TFS 2012 and 2013 have made my job much, much easier.
The value that can be derived from the new versions of TFS are clear. The integration with Git, the value add of Release Management and the adoption of a much shortened release cycle for updates has seen TFS rise to the occasion…and without saying anything I can tell you that some of the VS talks and projects that we are doing at the ALM Rangers makes me really excited to see how TFS will evolve a year or 2 down the line!
To keep it short, I decided to share with you my 4 lists of 4 for our 4th anniversary;
My 4 favourite moments so far…
- Starting the ALM days SA event
- Seeing the demand for our services growing year on year
- This is a personal one but becoming a Visual Studio ALM Ranger has long been an ambition of mine… so glad to be a part of this passionate community since 2013
- Presenting at local events…I still love to engage with those who actually use the toolset every day, even if it is just for source control
4 things I did not expect when I started Team Foundation Consulting…
- Some of you think I work for Microsoft!
While I do partner with MS SA to bring you so many ALM events each year, I neither “sell” their products nor am I employed by them. I am what you may call independent and free to share my own thoughts and opinions (as I occasionally tend to do…) - The demand for TFS training in South Africa was unexpected
I thought consulting would be at the core of the business, but it is our on-site training that has the most demand - After hours and weekend upgrades
Not all clients can have the luxury of a test environment or being able to shut down production during office hours… upgrades happen after hours – it’s a fact. - TFS is being used in a wide variety of industries…
You may think that most of my clients are dev houses, but these days it seems everyone has a dev department and many of them are using TFS to manage their work. Apart from the companies who develop solutions, some of the industries I’ve done business with include; mining, banking and financial /insurance provider, law, recycling, health, government, retail systems, call centres, logistics, entertainment, aerospace/arms, food stuffs, FMCG, fashion houses, clothing and textile, vehicle tracking, tourism, online booking systems, education tertiary, credit bureaus…to mention a few.
4 sad ways TFS gets used in large companies…
- Installed and being looked at wondering “what now?”…sad
- 1 team out of 12 …very sad
- Source control only …too sad
- As a pilot project that was never completed…crying now…
4 ways TFS and VS is better now than it ever has been…
- Features features features
- Usability
- Customisability
- Reporting Mechanisms (keeping management happy)
Thank you to all my clients for their support throughout the years, I'm excited about the future!
