Conchango Releases “Scrum For Team System” A Free Agile Methodology Add-In For Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Published 28th March 2006

Business and technology consultancy Conchango today announced the launch of the first Scrum project management methodology add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Scrum for Team System will be available on 27th March 2006 as a free download from www.scrumforteamsystem.com. The add-in will provide development teams with deep support for the use of Scrum, a popular Agile Software Development methodology, when running projects in Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System is Microsoft’s integrated suite of lifecycle tools that enables greater communication and collaboration among software development teams. When combined with the Scrum process, Visual Studio 2005 Team System reduces the complexity of development and improves communication and collaboration throughout the development process.

“Traditional approaches to application development often result in high failure rates due to poor communication and convoluted processes. The use of Scrum methodologies in a Visual Studio Team System environment will bring about software developments that are more aligned to business needs and delivered on schedule.” says Colin Bird, CTO at Conchango.

HMV, Experian and Boeing are just some of the companies that have been using Scrum for Team System following its beta launch in November 2005.

At the beginning of the year HMV was new to Visual Studio 2005 Team System and Agile methodologies but has since come to rely on them for rolling out phase two of HMV Digital, its digital download platform. David Cameron, Head of Software Development for HMV says, “The digital music industry is extremely fast paced and we need to be one step ahead of our customers needs at all times. Since HMV Digital was launched it has been continuously evolving and this has only been possible because we have the team and systems in place to be 100 percent responsive to changing requirements and the latest innovations.”

“The very best productivity and quality has come from teams that know how to do their work, and how to use the best tools to do their work,” said Ken Schwaber, founder of the Agile Alliance in 2001. “Conchango’s Scrum for Team System will make these productivity improvements more scalable and understandable.”

“We’re pleased that Conchango has decided to develop its Scrum solution for Visual Studio 2005 Team System,” said Rob Caron, content architect for Visual Studio Team System at Microsoft Corp. “Our mutual customers will benefit from Conchango’s experience with Agile project delivery and its solutions which bring corporations greater insight into the software development process.”