Consultant's Rules of Engagement

I was chatting with a colleague a while back and we were discussing ways to make our consultants feel more comfortable when they are dropped into a customer site. The biggest factor in their comfort-level seems to be how prepared they feel they are.

This totally makes sense to me as I realize now that the nature of the engagement is always one of the first things that I start investigating when I know I will soon be working with a customer. Ideally, the investigation yields enough details that I can begin establishing some expectation that focus on preparation appropriately. So what sort of expectations should I be looking for to maximize my preparedness?

That's where the Rules of Engagement come in. Here at Visiphor Consulting Services (VCS) we often use a military metaphor for our engagements. We are 'air-dropped' in, we are 'marines' who build the objective and move on, or we 'establish a beach head'. So, given the military context the concept of defining Rules of Engagement for our consultants seems natural. I know this term is not 'new' to consulting (as a quick Google search shows) but it very applicable to our consulting work.

Consultant's Rules of Engagement

1. Objectives
   
   
   1. What is the vision or 'big picture' of the engagement?
   
   
   2. What are the shared goals that constitute a successful conclusion?


2. Expectations
   
   
   1. What are the customer's expectations?
   
   
   2. What are our expectations?


3. Technical
   
   
   1. What are the skills required to achieve the objectives?
   
   
   2. What are the technologies involved?


4. Diplomatic


1. What is the political climate?


2. Who is the project sponsor?


3. What are the profiles of key players in the engagement?

A consultant provided with these Rules of Engagement should be armed with enough information to maximize their potential for success.

Team Foundation Server Administration Tool

This tool looks very helpful for configuring security within Team System. There are three different applications that need to by 'synchronized' (Team Foundation Server, SQL Reporting Services, and SharePoint) and this tool helps by administering all three simultaneously.

Team Foundation Server Administration Tool

Team System Software Topology

There are two important divisions in the Team System software universe:

1. Client
2. Server

The server product is called Team Foundation Server and provides the backbone of the Team System. An example of what it provides would be Source Control.

The client products are different flavours of Visual Studio 2005 based on roles
within the project team.

1. Team System Explorer
• This tool is bundled along with Team Foundation Server and is
  intended for non-techies to access things like work items.
2. Visual Studio Team Suite
• The uber-product that contains everything for all roles
3. Visual Studio for Architects
• Intended for Architects but really just seems to be a weaker version
  of Team Suite (which is what all the Architects will want).
4. Visual Studio for Developers
• Intended for Developers with a decent range of features for
  developing software within Team System.
5. Visual Studio for Testers
• Intended for Testers with some interesting testing features.
6. Visual Studio for Database Professionals
• Intended for Database Developers with some special features within
  the IDE specific to databases. Still no T-SQL intellisense,
  though

There you have it! We are hoping to get a hold of Team Suite for our evaluation but we may have to settle for Developer since that's all we can get a hold of. The DVD trial ordering site on ms.com says Team Suite is back-ordered and there is no download offered.

Investigating Team System - Licensing FAQ

We've been looking at this new beast called Team System for some time now and the time has come to jump in and start working with it. Due to the complexity and 'newness' of Team System we've decided to evaluate it by using it to develop an internal application. Also, since we are planning on using the 6-month demonstration version of Team Foundation Server we thought it was best not to undertake a customer engagement and run the danger of our demo expiring before we delivered!

But, perhaps I'm jumping ahead of myself. My goal with this blog over the next few weeks is to record the trials and tribulations of our Team System evaluation. Perhaps it will be useful to readers but more likely it will be a record of our discoveries for posterity.

There seem to be a couple of big challenges when starting a Team System evaluation. These are (1) Licensing, and (2) Application Topology.

Team System Licensing FAQ
Well, you know this is a bit complicated when MS has to release a 'white paper' describing how Team System (TS) licensing works! Here's a licensing FAQ based on what I've translated.

Q: Where do I get information regarding Team System Licensing?
A: Check out the Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005Team System Licensing White Paper.

Q: I have MSDN Universal, surely I get Team System with it?
A: Short answer: 'not all of it'. Long answer: You do get Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers and Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition. Unfortunately, these two products are really only suitable for small development shops and leverage only part of the Team System feature set. You need MSDN Premium to access more of Team System.

Q: Can I upgrade MSDN Universal to MSDN Premium in order to score Team System?
A: Short answer: "yes". Long answer: There are some options for upgrading your current MSDN subscription. Check them out here. Note: It looks like the best promotion ends on June 30th, 2006.

Q: What do I need to buy to use Team System?
A: You need one or more client licenses (Visual Studio), a Team Foundation Server License, sufficient CALs to support your user base (one for each user), and a non-MSDN Windows 2003 Server license. The client licenses come in a variety of flavours based on the 'role' of the team member. The best one is Team Suite since it covers all of the others but you can also get a Developer, Tester, Architect, or Database version.

That covers the main questions I had. Hopefully this helps!

I'll talk about Team System Application Topology in a future post.