If you have Team Foundation Server 2012, what does VersionOne offer?

Question

[This smells like a "which is better" question, but it is not.]

We are using Team Foundation Server 2012 for version control and bug tracking (which is not going to change). We are moving to Agile, and are being asked to use VersionOne to manage the process.

I have attended several Webinars on VersionOne. I cannot get a clear answer on their Team Foundation Server integration story. I cannot find a single significant feature it has that Team Foundation Server 2012 does not have.

What am I missing? Are there better existing integration stories? Does anyone have experience with these two products working together? Does anyone know of any pitfalls?

-- Update --

We've worked with both side-by-side for a while now, and I can share our experiences:

• Setting up automatic synchronization is (as expected) horrendous. Expect downtime and permanent general flakiness.
• The V1 Visual Studio plug-in is next to useless. It allows you to do some updates from within the IDE, but not all. It doesn't sync properly. It doesn't offer context. You can't link to any item reliably. It is strictly worse than just Alt-Tabbing back and forth.
• The few features we found useful and use in V1 (Team Rooms, sub-teams, discussions) are coming in TFS 2013 and work much better (especially if you use Lync for IM).

TL,DR: V1 is pretty good for what it is, but it is a silo. All integration is patchwork. You lose almost all of the benefits of integration that TFS offers -- don't get me wrong, TFS has many, many, many, many warts, but being able to link a story to a checkin to a defect to a discussion to a document on your Team Wiki to a specific build is just hilariously better.

-- Update --

We have just started using Coded UI for whitebox testing, and it is stupidly powerful. Having to dupe with VersionOne is just hateful at this point.

Answer 1

If you are using TFS 2012 then I would still question why you think you need another tool to "go agile".

I believe the latest updates to TFS 2012 have improved agile working support so this should still work just fine. You could go for Scrum or Kanban style in terms of your chosen agile working practice.

Some questions that may provoke more thought:

• Do we want to go Scrum style or Kanban?
• Which non-technical co-workers need to participate as part of the agile-style project?
• Do they all need to use TFS 2012 and/or VersionOne (or any other tool for that matter)?
• Is TFS 2012 OK to expose to the non-technical team members (who don't care about ALM tools), or do we need to bring an additional tool into play?

To be honest you could probably "run agile" on just sticky notes if that is what you need.

FYI: http://blog.countersoft.com/2013/03/basics-of-running-agile-projects/

Answer 2

I happen to find this answer searching for something else and it's one I answer a lot in person so adding mine here anyway and I feel it's a more true answer.

The V1 Integration is useful for developers (you can check in code against task that's all you need). I have used both. Maybe for developers TFS is better (assuming they just checking in code) but for the good Scrum Master and Product Owner, *

VersionOne beats TFS online hands down

*. Main reason is that V1 is faster to manage and manipulate Stories, organize, prioritize and the reporting is way better.

TFS online has a lot to be desired when it comes to Scrum/Sprint management.

It's slow and cumbersome if you are creating, splitting, merging stories around and breaking down stories into tasks. The process of doing the same thing on V1 is 100% times more efficient, easier, faster. I'd pull my hair out if I had to use TFS to manage the backlog and V1 has reporting geared towards agile development.

One example in TFS you can't break down Acceptance Criteria into individual tests and assign time to them on planning day Which throws off your sprint planning. Could you mange it with TFS? sure with customization and linking to other work types, but it's a pain in the butt.

V1 has release forecasting, capacity planning for your team the next two weeks, poker planning built in for offshore teams and overall built for Agile development.

Your developers should just have to check in code against the tasks, which they can. Your Scrum Master/Product Owner live in the tool and should really use the tool that's best for them.

So use both. Nothing wrong with it. Use TFS online just to store your code. Use V1 for everything else.