Symptoms

Error “Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlClrProvider, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′ or one of its depedencies. The system cannot find the file specified.” is dosplayed during the installation of the repository

Explanation

Additional Microsoft components are required in case repository is installed on some legacy SQL Server versions. These components are sometimes missing in Windows.

Solution

For SQL 2008

Check if version 10.0.xxx is mentioned in error message. Install packages according your Windows edition (32 or 64) and processor (X – Intel, IA – Itanium) .

For SQL 2005

Check if version 9.0.xxx is mentioned in error message. Install packages according your Windows edition (32 or 64) and processor (X – Intel, IA – Itanium) .

Ceremonies

Project definition
Product Planning
Releases planning
Sprints lanning
Parallel development of releases in one sprint
Sprint execution
Retrospective
Estimation by Team	Distributed Planning Poker®, Triangulation

User Story

Electronic Id
Status	Predefined workflow To do, Checked out, Solved, Completed
Other details	Title, Description, Acceptance criteria
Planning	Type, Theme, Tags, Release, Sprint
Color	Predefined palette +  default yellow post-it like color
Effort	Modified Fibonacci scale Custom numbers
Time	Estimated duration, remaining time, time spent
Time units	Days, Hours, automatic conversion
Story Type	Predefined types Customizable list
Story Templates	Customizable
Prioritization	Positive & negative business value Risk Kano satisfaction MoSCow Rank suggestion by ScrumDesk
Tags/labels	Multiple Selection from existing Search by tag, filter by tag
Stories Relations
Comments	Unlimited, flat structure
Links
Attachments	Yes Auto-update if edited (like DropBox) Screen Capture
Tasks
History

Team management

Team size	5 in free edition Unlimited in commercial version, 5 always for free
Number of teams	Unlimited
Hierarchical teams
Other features	Filter teams, Search teams, LDAP import Personal details and avatar Online status sharing Local time based on time zone of team member

Backlog views

Multi-select
Free position of cards
Free size of cards
Colors	Predefined color set Default color Last color
Overview	ID Assignee(s) Subject Description Effort Remaining/Total duration Category/Theme
Tasks management	ID Task title Assignee + avatar Duration Remaining Spent
Progress tracking	Story Burn Down chart (time, effort)
Other	Private story (for person only) Internal story (for team only) Call team working on a story Email to team member Access web pages (blog, twitter, etc.)

Timeline	Interactive Sprints, releases and demo meetings Zoom in/out Remaining days to end of a sprint
Board	Virtual board Multiple boards in tabs
Story index card
Task as card
Stories in a grid
Treemap
Task board/Kanban board
Zoom
Highlight my stories/tasks
Interactive filtering

Stories Grid

Filter by example
Interactive grouping
Fixed columns
Group statistics
Change columns order
Preferences	Layout saved/restored automatically
Excel like

Metrics

Velocity tracking	Release Sprint
Burn Down chart	Releases Sprints Weeks, Days, Effort, Backlog changes Impediments in chart
Burn Up chart	Sprints Weeks, Days, Effort, Backlog changes Impediments in chart
Time tracking
Effort tracking
Value tracking
Risk vs. Value	Priorities suggested by ScrumDesk to simplified product planning
Daily backlog trends
Parking lot	Progress of themes Status of theme
Satisfaction level vs. effort	Kano model
Release date prediction	Minimum velocity Maximum velocity Last 8 Sprints Mean Average velocity
Timesheets
Backlog by status
Value added

Files & Attachments

Impediments tracking

Number of impediments	Unlimited
Status of impediments
Other attributes	Identified by, Responsible person, Resolved date Related to project, story or task
Visibility	Charts Documents Story cards

Estimation

Planning poker™	Onsite Distributed Immediate comparison Relative triangulation Vote by poker cards Remote moderation Timed poker rounds
Fibonacci scale	Mike Cohn’s modified Fibonacci scale
Custom value
Velocity statistics	Minimum Maximum Last 8 Mean Average Statistic per releases and sprints

Latest activities

Changes	Story changes tracked
Filtering
Sorting
Online notification	Email notification (TO:, CC:) Bubble notification Silent notification Integration with FlowDock©

Printable Documents

Other

Absences management
Screen capture
Time zones
Availability	Online status
Sprint meeting reminder
Time management	Pomodoro technique
Send status from ScrumDesk	Email Yammer Twitter FlowDock

Integration

CSV	Import, Export
Excel	Export
PDF
SharePoint	Retrospective ideas as SharePoint tasks
Version Control Systems	Subversion Microsoft TFS BitBucket
Project Management	Microsoft Team Foundation Server  2008, 2010
Issue Tracking Systems	Microsoft Team Foundation Server  2008, 2010
Microsoft Reporting Server
Communication	Skype Microsoft Office Communicator FlowDock Twitter Any system processing emails
Open data schema
LDAP import
REST API, JSON, XML
Twitter
Email notification
Outlook

Platforms

Windows	Windos XP, Vista, 7, 8
iPhone/iPod
iPad
Windows Phone 7	Available in 2012
Android	Available in 2012
Web	Available in 2012
Repository	Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 Windows Azure

LiveChatoo service, that we started to use in November 2011, brought clients almost to our doors. Well not physically, but virtually it is face to face.

Such close feedback helps us to prioritize backlogs very efficiently. Exactly as it should be once developing product in agile environment.

Few hundred support cases finished in 94% satisfaction. That is huge motivator of us.

Still space for improvements, but thank you for evaluating our service.

We see a lot of people in Europe eager to know more about Agile.

We see people who would like to know what does it mean to be agile, how to start with it and how to evolve into agile company.

ScrumDesk company actively supports agile transition in Central and Eastern Europe region therefore we actively look forward to bring more knowledge.

As part of  that effort we are proud to support new serie about agility presented by Tim Yevgrashyn.

Agile on their own is free serie of short online webinars that cover different aspects of Agile. The serie is targeted for russian speaking people.

The serie consists of these trainings:

1. Agile, how to begin, April 19th
2. Scrum – why so few roles, practices and artifacts? April 26th
3. Secrets of Scrum roles, May 10th
4. How to organize work of Scrum team? May 17th
5. Scrum rituals: planning nuances and work in the sprint, May 24th
6. Scrum rituals: Daily scrum, May 31st
7. Scrum rituals: literate show or advice how to do review, June 7th
8. Scrum rituals: a retrospective – mechanism of adoption, June 14th
9. Planning and estimation of agile projects, June 21st
10. Backlog in Scrum: requirements management and prioritization, July 5th
11. Agile requirements: Stories by users, July 12th
12. Agile processes: metrics and optimization, July 19th
13. From Scrum to Kanban, July 26th

So if you speak or understand Russian, the serie is right for you! See more on original pages.

Who is Tim Yevgrashyn?

Tim is agile coach who helped dozens of teams to transition to Agile. Check this infographic to find more about him.

The latest build includes following changes.

• Installation

Easier upgrade of repository

Repository is possible to update directly from ScrumDesk directly. Only SQL Server 2008 R2 is supported.

Please use Repository Manager in case your SQL server is 2005 or 2008 R1. This feature will allows us to distribute new versions smoothly.

Quick filter in Planning

In previous versions the backlog was possible to filter by click on the legend displaying the number of stories. We simplified the access to filter by new edit ine in which you can enter the text or Id of the story.  Stories will be filtered by press of Enter key. Pressing ESC key the filter will be cancelled.

Impediments management

Change of date

Date when impediments has been entered is possible to change now. To change it click anywhere into Date column and anter the date directly or choose it from displayed calendar.

Impediment status

Status of impediments is possible to change by any role (except of visitors) now

Persistent filters in Reports page

ScrumDesk now remembers selected sprint or release in Reports page. The sprint (release) is automatically restored as selection after Refresh command.

Other fixed issues

• Estimated field is not saved in stories grid

The next part of Agile Knowledge Hub is presented by Tim Yevgrashyn, an agile coach who works for Ciklum company.

This part is focused on agile estimation of requirements, why to do it and how to do the estimation. We hope you will enjoy this webinar.

Spoločnosť ScrumDesk ponúka konzultačné služby počas posledných troch rokov. Naša viditeľnosť na Slovensku a v Českej Republike nebola výrazná, keďže sme sa viac zameriavali na spoločnosti sídliace v  zahraničí.

Tento rok je našim cieľom výraznejšie pomáhať spoločnostiam, ktoré vytvárajú hodnoty v strednej a východnej Európe a predovšetkým v Slovenskej a Českej republike.  Krajiny, v ktorých Vám vieme pomôcť sú zobrazené zelenou farbou na mapke Európy.

Viac o konzultačnom centre spoločnosti ScrumDesk, o kurzoch, seminároch, webinároch a certifikáciách nájdete na www.scrum.sk.

————————

ScrumDesk company offers consultancy services for the last three years. Our local visibility in Slovakia and Czech Republic has not been so high as we focused on helping companies especially from West Europe and US.

This year we decided to help companies creating a value in Central Europe, especially  Slovakia and Czech Republic. Except of this region we are ready to support your teams in countries highlighted on map below by green color.

Specialty of our company is an experience with different sizes of companies, from startups to enterprise companies. If  you have an offshore  center in CEE region and you look to improve agile implementation , we are ready to help your teams by providing professional coaching and consultancy services.

As part of this effort we prepared pages in Slovak language listing all courses, webinars and certification classes we will provide either by us or via our partners.

National consultancy centre is available at www.scrum.sk.

This new version brings two important features:

1. support of Windows Azure cloud data storage
2. project level impediments and
3. auto-upload of changed attachments

We continue to add additional rules into integrated coach module you found usable to identify gaps in your agility. We also has started collaboration with agile coaches to bring more knowledge into this tool and get coaches closer to you without huge investments.

We also continue in optimalization of speed, started to focus on bigger LCD screens teams use as dashboards during meetings.

Download

• online installation including automatic upgrade
• offline CD installation without automatic upgrade

Notice

Database upgrade is REQUIRED. Please, use the latest Database Manager to upgrade your database.

• for SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Azure
• for SQL Server 2008 R1
• for SQL Server 2005

New features

Windows Azure Cloud

ScrumDesk supports cloud now!  We are proud to be one of the first provider of Windows Azure cloud in Slovakia.

Usage of Windos Azure allows our client to host repositories in highly reliable, scalable and secure environment that provides great performance. More over with Azure you have two replicated repositories provided automatically.

To use cloud  database in Azure you need to just install it using  database manager and then connect to newly created repository in ScrumDesk. Nothing else is required.

And the best, Azure is supported for free from us. We do not ask additional charges for it.

Agile Coach

Issues filtering

Issues can be filtered  by role of team member. This feature allows to focus on issues that are really important for the user. It is possible to choose more roles at the same time.

New Rule

Progress of checked out tasks – tasks that are checked out should be updated daily. If they are not updated, then the fundamental principle of visibility is broken.

Impediments

Project level impediments

Now, impediments are not necessary to be related to stories or tasks only. Track any impediment related to a project. Impediments can be entered in Impediments window now.

THey also can be edited in this window, so it is not necessary to open story or task detail window.

Indication of remaining days

The number of days till end of the sprint is displayed in timeline.



Timeline

New sprint can be created directly from the timeline by pressing + button.

Attachments

ScrumDesk is the box for dropping files

All attachments can be opened from ScrumDesk, edited and automatically uploaded back to repository. This feature allows to have documentation current and in one place.

Attachments can be renamed now as well.

Kanban Board

Card size in Kanban board can be changed between small and large card.  The new commands to switch between the size are located near zoom slider in task board.

The small card

The small card is not changed comparing to previous version.

The large card

This card displays:

• task id
• task subject
• the picture of assigned team member
• progress bar of the current task status

Fixes

• Optimalized speed of  project load
• [Attachment] Renamed attachment is not possible to open
• [Attachment] Attachments are duplicated after the first refresh
• Visitors are not able to change release type and release status anymore
• Sprint details are not disabled for visitors, they are read only instead
• Incorrect data written if attachment is updated
• Blank pages in documents should not be displayed now

You know that probably.

Requirements are coming, coming and coming.  There is no time to stop and think about them. There is no time to organize them. There is no time to analyze your backlog so you know which requirements should be developed as next. Even more, many customers ask you of new functionality or defect fixes.

In our last training we tried Innovation Game approach to gather product requirements and break them down into manageable size.

The game is called Prune the product tree.

See more on InnovationGames page.

Prune the Product Tree game

The principle of the game is simple. Draw a tree on flipchart board that will represent your product. Then, ask either your customers, your product owner or the team to start to draw limbs.

Thick limbs will represent major areas of functionality.  These limbs will represent epics in your backlog.

Then draw thin limbs on thick limbs. These thin limbs will guide your teams to be more specific about the major functionality. Visibility of the tree and limbs will guides them to be structured. In agile terminology these thin limbs may represent themes.

And, do not forget leaves. Leaves are small and without them the tree will not survive. You need leaves, but maybe not all of them. Leaves represent stories.

Try to even use the distance as visualization of necessity. Edge of the tree (outermost branches) are probably not so necessary, they will be developed in some next version.

Do not forget to check  ’the weight’ of limbs. Are some limbs thin with few leaves only? Maybe they are not so necessary.

Is your tree well balanced? Maybe some features are less important, or they simply miss fundamental functionality.

What you see observing your tree?

The Game

Credits

• Tree picture rights reserved by jrsnchzhrs

Starting today we help you to get your project repositories closer to your teams and make them even more reliable and more secure.

We are proud to announce the support of Microsoft Windows Azure cloud as one of the first companies located in Slovakia.

Windows Azure gets your data to 41 countries. To host our database you will need Azure Database program which cost start at $9.99 per month.

To install ScrumDesk repositories you need to use Database Manager and configure the connection to your Microsoft Azure space.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Just one step to go to cloud….

Come to learn Scrum by practice. Let’s develop product using all Scrum ceremonies including Agile practices with help of experienced Agile coaches.

Registration

For who

Agile teams, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Leadership roles, Project management, Product management, Business owners

Purpose

The purpose of practice day is to show how to do Scrum correctly. Instead of presentation we will coach you how to use agile practices by development of a product. You will learn how to define a product in agile way, you will learn to write epics and stories correctly, do adaptive planning, estimate effort and try practices applied in daily job of agile team. No coding skills are necessary.

Agenda

• Lean Canvas
• Agile Product Definition
• Product Box
• Agile Roadmap
• Stories writing
• Prioritization
• Agile estimation
• Release Planning
• Development of product in Sprints
• Sprint Review
• Sprint retrospective techniques

Pictures

Agile projects apply different estimation approaches comparing to traditional project management. Even there is the discussion of estimation is necessary, agile teams are estimating requirements as clients often want to know effort.

Timofey Yevgrashyn is experience Agile Coah, who supported agile transition of many teams. Currently he is focused on distributed and offshore teams and works as the Senior Consultant in Ciklum - a Danish innovative IT outsourcing company specializing in nearshore software development in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine and Belarus. Except of coaching, he writes interesting posts about teams and practices at http://tim.com.ua and he organizes Pecha Kucha events.

Date: March 13, 2012

While being in agile transition, teams look for information how to do agile correctly. Often the question sounds ’How to DO agile?‘ The guideline we prepared might be helpful to shorten your transfromation period and stabilize agile environment earlier.

Download full paper as PDF from http://www.scrumdesk.com/Download/Documents/AgileResources/ScrumGuidelines.pdf

We are proud to announce availability of ScrumDesk Lite for iPhone, iPod and iPad in Apple AppStore.

Lite edition allows read-only access to projects and backlog stories. The main goal is to provide an access for your stakeholders who do not need to change data while still need to have a visibility of the current status.

In addition this edition includes Planning Poker deck of cards that team might use in planning sessions.

ScrumDesk Lite is available for free in AppStore. Also, check ScrumDesk for iOS User Guide. Stay tuned for full access editions.

Do you need to learn more about agile and scrum fundamentals? We suggest to start with following  books.

For begginers

Free download, Slovak translation

If you are agile already

Presentations about Scrum

This presentation has been presented during StartUp Camp in Kosice, east of Slovakia.

Coaching of teams has been always great source of ideas for us. Many features in ScrumDesk have been implemented because of daily touch with real-life teams. You can benefit from that value built-in into our solutions what differentiate us from other project management tools.

In coaching sessions we observed typical patterns that appear in every team being transitioned to agile. They are so obvious that we are even able to predict the time when they start to be more visible and intensive. As we repeated the same answers for the same questions for quite long time. Because of that we decided to bring something new which tools should help with.

Our idea is to help teams all around the globe to improve. We know typical gaps. We want to  help you to indetify them and suggest helpfull advices. Therefore we  integrated an agile coach into ScrumDesk.

What is integrated coach?

Integrated coach in ScrumDesk validates project, backlog and other project assets. It does not just validate, but it provides suggestions how to solve gaps.  Scrum Master can identify problems sonner and solve them before they become a real problems that can stop the team.

In this first iteration we focused on:

• proper project setup
• team organization
• backlog prioritization
• and agile planning

All identified issues are displayed in the list on the left side with description of the issue, explanation how to solve it and furter resources (links) where more information can be found.

Color of the issue says how many percent of items in your project have the problem:

• green color for minor issue, issue is not repeated many times
• yellow color if most then half of items have the mentioned problem
• orange if more than 80% of items have the same problem

The items with the same issue are displayed in the list on the right side.  You can access and change details by double-click the item, in some case right in place.

Further plans

We plan to implement more rules to help Scrum Masters to identify gaps in flow in near future. These rules are based on our continuous coaching and very well known scrum checklists.

We also plan to provide configuration of rules to apply or prevent to be applied in the check (for example if you do kanban, iteration is not necessary). This will allows to create YOUR team rules.

Stay tuned!

Database is not necessary to update, only client application needs to be installed.

New features

• Agile coach
• WebAPI accessible in Repository dialog

Fixes

• Status of  a sprint indicated in Planning sprint list by color
• Double-click on release attachment in Search results do not open release detail window
• Double-click on sprint attachment in Search results do not open sprint detail window
• It is not possible to cancel split of stories
• Make  stories splitting question more clear + provide SPlit and Move buttons, not Yes, No
• Slow refresh on  reset of filter
• Filter by MoSCow doesn’t filter correctly in all cases
• Filter by Customer satisfaction doesn’t filter correctly in all cases
• Change of MoSCow or Satisfaction in filter will hide stories until filter is not reset
• Filter is possible to turn on/off by click on Filter button in all views
• Highlight of filter edit line is not cleared once filter is not applied
• Category written in retrospective idea is correctly saved now
• Search in Poker planning fixed
• Fixed availability of commands while switching tabs
• Color of combo boxes for all  documents in Reports/Documents section
• Taskboard – tasks is not possible to move if sprint is not started
• Team Manager – search for team member in hierarchy doesn’t work properly
• Double click on comment incorrectly opens links. It should be disabled.
• Spell checker settings are ignored in Sprint Notes field
• If  link format is incorrect, ScrumDesk says “File not found”
• Not updated statistics in Planning if project is switched
• Button X should not be available in Relations chart in story detail
• Community News window not closed correctly
• Search in Retrospective doesn’t indicate filter by orange color
• Release indicator in Planning is not updated when story is assigned to release
• Sprint indicator in Planning is not updated when story is assigned to sprint
• Deletion of retrospective idea Idea if sprint is done
• User name changed after Repository window is loaded
• Options  are not possible to change Spell Checker configuration
• Burn Down chart in SideView not updated if project is switched
• Deleted project appears in projects list
• Search in Add Team member window
• Change of role in team grid should be allowed for Scrum Master only
• Blocked ScrumDesk if no Non-working day is selected
• New story based on new story template is not correct
• Fill in Planning ends in crash
• Incorrectly allowed drag in task board if sprint is planned
• Retrospective ideas is possible to add, modify and delete even the sprint is closed
• Fix of Repository window, login name has been changed after window is displayed
• Long values in Planning view statistics bar not displayed correctly

Support is for us the most important way how to help our users.  To better understand quality our service, our every email  have a possibility to tell us if our advice was a real help for you.

In email sign you can rate the answer by click on such icons

For feedback we use  NiceReply feedback service provided by another Slovakian company WebSupport.sk.

Thank you for your feedback!