MSF Agile Workstreams and Activities

MSF Agile

“Agile methods are not meant to be followed blindly; rather, teams should remain flexible and pragmatic, adapting their approach to meet the specific needs of each project.” — Jim Highsmith

I’ve been lucky to be involved throughout the journey of developing MSF Agile with the product teams.

I was asked to be a reviewer and collaborator because of my background and experience in Agile methodologies.

MSF Agile is a software methodology developed by Microsoft to help teams manage software development projects using an agile approach.

It provides a framework of workstreams, roles, and key activities to help teams navigate through the various stages of the software development lifecycle.

In this article, I’ll provide a simple summary overview of the MSF Agile methodology, including its workstreams, roles, and key activities, to help teams get started with this approach.

What is MSF Agile?

MSF Agile (Microsoft Solutions Framework Agile) is an iterative and incremental agile software development methodology developed by Microsoft.

It provides a customizable framework that can be adapted to meet the specific needs of a project, team, or organization.

MSF Agile is based on the principles of the Agile Manifesto and emphasizes collaboration, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.

MSF Agile at a Glance

When I review an approach, I find it helpful to distill it to a simple frame so I can get a bird’s-eye view.

For MSF Agile, I found the most useful frame to be the workstreams and key activities.

According to MSF, workstreams are simply groups of activities that flow logically together and are usually associated with a particular role. I couldn’t find this view in MSF Agile, so I created one:

Workstream	Role	Key Activities
Capture Project Vision	Business Analyst	Write Vision Statement Define Personas Refine Personas
Create a Quality of Service Requirement	Business Analyst	Brainstorm quality of Service Requirements Develop Lifestyle Snapshot Prioritize Quality of Service Requirements List Write Quality of Service Requirements Identify Security Objectives
Create a Scenario	Business Analyst	Brainstorm Scenarios Develop Lifestyle Snapshot Prioritize Scenario List Write Scenario Description Storyboard a Scenario
Guide Project	Project Manager	Review Objectives Assess Progress Evaluate Test Metric Thresholds Triage Bugs Identify Risk
Plan an Iteration	Project Manager	Determine Iteration Length Estimate Scenario Estimate Quality of Service Requirements Schedule Scenario Schedule Quality of Service Requirement Schedule bug Fixing Allotment Divide Scenarios into Tasks Divide Quality of Service Requirements into Tasks
Guide an Iteration	Project Manager	Monitor Iteration Mitigate a Risk Conduct Retrospectives
Create a Solution Architecture	Architect	Partition the System Determine Interfaces Develop Threat Model Develop Performance Model Create Architectural Prototype Create Infrastructure Architecture
Build a Product	Developer	Start a Build Verify a Build Fix a Build Accept Build
Fix a Bug	Developer	Reproduce the Bug Locate the Cause of a Bug Reassign a Bug Decide on a Bug Fix Strategy Code the Fix for a Bug Create or Update a Unit Test Perform a Unit Test Refactor Code Review Code
Implement a Developer Task	Developer	Cost a Development Task Create or Update a Unit Test Write Code for a Development Task Perform Code Analysis Perform a Unit Test Refactor Code Review Code Integrate Code Changes
Close a Bug	Tester	Verify a Fix Close the Bug
Test a Quality of Service Requirement	Tester	Define Test Approach Write Performance Tests Write Security Tests Write Stress Tests Write Load Tests Select and Run a Test Case Open a Bug Conduct Exploratory Testing
Test a Scenario	Tester	Define Test Approach Write Validation Tests Select and Run a Test Case Open a Bug Conduct Exploratory Testing
Release a Product	Release Manager	Execute a Release Plan Validate a Release Create Release Notes Deploy the Product