The strongest articles on engineering excellence and technical leadership — ranked by substance, not recency. How this is ranked
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Don’t Manage Dependencies, Remove Them
Explains why dependencies are a sign of poor system design and outlines steps to eliminate them by aligning teams, clarifying ownership, and …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
The Estimation Trap: How Tracking Accuracy Undermines Trust, Flow, and Value in Software Delivery
Tracking estimation accuracy in software delivery leads to mistrust, fear, and distorted behaviours. Focus on customer value, flow, and …
The Definition of Done is a Commitment to Quality
Defines the Definition of Done in Scrum as a clear, shared standard for quality, ensuring increments are releasable, transparent, and …
The articles that speak most directly to technical leadership — ranked by that classification’s score alone.
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Don’t Manage Dependencies, Remove Them
Explains why dependencies are a sign of poor system design and outlines steps to eliminate them by aligning teams, clarifying ownership, and …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
There Is No Such Thing as a "Junior" Scrum Master
Argues that the Scrum Master role requires proven mastery and real-world experience, not entry-level skills or certifications, and should be …
Great Scrum Masters Need Technical, Business, and Organisational Mastery
Scrum Masters are most effective when they combine leadership skills with technical, business, and organisational mastery to support teams, …
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
The articles that speak most directly to engineering excellence — ranked by that classification’s score alone.
Stop Building Silos. Start Building Systems
Explains how fragmented automation and tool silos harm software delivery, and advocates for unified engineering systems and platform …
Rethinking Capacity Planning
Explores how effective capacity planning shifts focus from individual hours to system-level flow, using Lean and Agile principles to improve …
The Definition of Done is a Commitment to Quality
Defines the Definition of Done in Scrum as a clear, shared standard for quality, ensuring increments are releasable, transparent, and …
Testing in Production Maximises Quality and Value
Explains how audience-based deployment and testing in production enable faster feedback, safer rollouts, and higher software quality by …
Telling People What to Do Is Not Leadership. It’s a Failure of System Design
Explores why real leadership means designing systems that enable team autonomy, flow, and accountability, rather than relying on …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Why Topic Branches Drive High-Quality Delivery
Explains how short-lived topic branches in source control improve software quality, enable modularity, speed up integration, and support …
Stop Hiding Behind Complexity and Start Delivering Continuously
Continuous delivery is achievable for any software, regardless of complexity. Success depends on investment in automation, quality, and …
Resilience is Part of the Product, Not an Afterthought
Resilience must be designed into products from the start, not added later. Build systems to detect, contain, and recover from failures, …
420 resources, newest first
Uncommitted changes messing up your sync in Git with Visual Studio
Explains how uncommitted changes in Git can prevent syncing with the server in Visual Studio, and highlights key workflow differences from …
NDC London: Second Look, Team Foundation Server & VSO
Overview of a session at NDC London demonstrating new features in Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online, with end-to-end ALM demos …
Bug in the Visual Studio Git integration that results in a merge conflict
Explains a Visual Studio Git bug causing merge conflicts during pulls with local commits, its workaround, and best practices for managing …
Creating training virtual machines in Azure
Step-by-step guide to uploading, configuring, and deploying multiple training virtual machines in Azure using PowerShell, including …
Bruce Lee on Scrum and Agile
Explores how Bruce Lee’s philosophy applies to Scrum and Agile, emphasising adaptability, simplicity, and creating flexible, tailored …
Install of TFS 2013.3 with SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1
Step-by-step guide to installing TFS 2013.3 with SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2, covering prerequisites, configuration, …
Migrating source from Perforce to Git on VSO
Step-by-step guide to migrating source code from Perforce to Git on VSO, covering repository setup, dependency management, build processes, …
You can't use WITADMIN on versions older than TFS 2010
Explains troubleshooting WITADMIN errors with TFS versions, highlighting the need for TFS 2010 SP1 or newer for compatibility with work item …
Avoid the Bug as Task anti-pattern in Azure DevOps
Explains why treating bugs as tasks in Azure DevOps is an anti-pattern, its impact on transparency, quality, and planning, and offers …
Maven release perform tries to do a Get to a workspace sub folder in TFS
Explains issues with Maven release perform in TFS workspaces, causes of build failures, and solutions for workspace mapping, concurrency, …
Avoid the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern
Explains the risks of the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern in source control, its impact on code quality, and recommends feature branching …
Maven release prepare fails with detected changes in Jenkins
Explains how to fix Maven release prepare failures in Jenkins with TFS by using .tfignore files to exclude generated files like …
Getting a service account for VSO with TFS Service Credential Viewer
Learn how to use TFS Service Credential Viewer to generate service accounts for Visual Studio Online, enabling secure, automated access …
TFS Process Template migration script updated
Provides a step-by-step PowerShell script for migrating and updating TFS process templates, including customisations, work item types, …
Mask password in Jenkins when calling TEE
Learn how to securely mask passwords in Jenkins logs when using Team Explorer Everywhere (TEE), preventing sensitive credentials from being …
Configuring Jenkins to talk to TFS 2013
Guide to integrating Jenkins with TFS 2013 using the Team Foundation Server plugin, covering installation, configuration, and key …
Does your organisation have both Project Mangers as well as Product Owners?
Explores the challenges of having both Project Managers and Product Owners in teams, highlighting conflicts, reporting issues, and impacts …
Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2013
Guide to using Visual Studio 2013 for application lifecycle management, covering new ALM features, agile practices, Git integration, and …
Should I upgrade to TFS 2013 Update 2?
Covers new features and upgrade steps for Team Foundation Server 2013 Update 2, including improvements in backlog, test, release, and …
TFS for cross team and cross business line work item tracking
Explains how to use a single Team Project and Team Field in TFS to streamline cross-team work item tracking, reporting, and collaboration …
Metrics that matter with evidence-based management
Explains how evidence-based management uses reliable metrics and KPIs at team and organisational levels to drive better decisions, value …
Team Foundation server 2013 Update 2 RC is coming, are you ready?
Learn about the free Microsoft-supported TFS 2013 Update 2 RC upgrade event, key new features like tag management, and how to register …
Building a release pipeline with Release Management with Visual Studio 2013
Explains how to set up a scalable release pipeline using Release Management in Visual Studio 2013, covering continuous release, feedback …
Installing Release Management Server for TFS 2013
Step-by-step guide to downloading, installing, and configuring Release Management Server for Team Foundation Server 2013, including offline …
Execute Tests with Release Management for Visual Studio 2013
Learn how to automate test execution during deployments using Release Management for Visual Studio 2013, including setup steps, environment …
Installing Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013
Step-by-step guide to downloading, installing, and configuring the Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013, including setup tips …
Professional Scrum in Immingham, UK
Summary of a multi-team Professional Scrum training at DFDS Seaways in Immingham, UK, highlighting co-located learning, cross-team …
ALM Consulting in Scotland, UK, Scandinavia & Europe
Provides ALM consulting, training, and assessments across Scotland, UK, and Europe, specialising in lean-agile, TFS, Visual Studio, Scrum, …
Issue [ TFS 2013 ] Value cannot be null. Parameter name: key
Explains how a missing required Team Field in customised TFS 2013 work item templates causes "Value cannot be null" errors, and how to …
Visual Studio 2013 and TFS 2013 are released, get yours now! Oh and Windows 8.1…
Visual Studio 2013, Team Foundation Server 2013, and Windows 8.1 are now available, offering new ALM features, upgrade options, and …