Introduction to the Narratives

Perhaps the best method of conveying a message is to wrap it in a story. This book will take you through the life of a typical software project manager named Chase. Chase is an experienced software developer who has played virtually every role on a software development project from software developer and tester to project manager. Chase was recently hired by a startup venture capital–based organization to lead their latest software development effort. For the first time in his career, Chase has been given complete control and has been made responsible for a team of 25 others that consist mostly of developers and testers. Like most software developers, Chase is an extremely smart person and learns quickly-usually as he goes. Chase has a track record of getting things done; however, over the past five years, Chase’s interest around project management has been growing to the point where he has taken night courses on project management and has been working to attain project management certification from the Project Management Institute. Agile software development methodologies have always been an interest of Chase’s, and he’s looking forward to test driving some of his new knowledge on his new job.

Chase’s team has been assigned to develop a new commercial, shrink-wrapped software application that targets the insurance industry by using the latest Microsoft .NET technology. The organization for which Chase is now working, Humongous Insurance, has some lofty goals and some very real deadlines and has given Chase the challenge of having the product ready for release within eight months. Needless to say, Chase is excited and up for the challenge. Chase is starting off with a great team; however, he is keenly aware that it will take much more than just smart people to succeed. We will see the launch of Chase’s story in this chapter and then follow subsequent phases of the project life cycle through the next three chapters of the book.

Why Chase’s Story?

Many different types of organizations use Visual Studio Team System to help build software. Other environments could include software consulting organizations working against fixed-bid tendered contracts, multi-technology platform-based projects, research and development projects, or even multi-geographic and off-shoring scenarios. It is the intent of Chase’s story to provide enough diversity in approach to help you to adapt the principles and practices prescribed in this book to other more specialized scenarios that you may need to deal with. Because we cannot cover all project types across all possible scenarios, our goal to provide you with a base pattern that you can extend to fit your particular project style and team.