TFS Rippler is an add-on for Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) that runs as a background service, providing some key benefits that you don’t get out of the box with TFS. TFS Rippler automatically and efficiently updates workitems based on a set of customisable rules, triggered by changes to workitem fields or states. Here are few examples of what TFS Rippler can be used for:

• Populate an ROI (Return On Investment) field in your Product Backlog Item or Feature calculated by dividing the Business Value by the Effort field.
• Aggregate values from child workitems up to a parent, for example calculating the Total Work Remaining to complete a Product Backlog Item, calculated from the remaining work on its Tasks.
• Provide a Feature’s percentage completeness,  based on the Remaining Story Points effort versus the Total Story Points required to complete the feature, aggregated from its child Product Backlog Items.
• Automatically moving a Product Backlog Item to In Progress as soon as any work starts on its Tasks

Here’s an example Excel Feature Dashboard that is driven by a number of TFS Rippler capabilities, working in combination to show a great overview of Feature progress for all stakeholders:

Outlined in Green we have the percentage complete calculated for a Feature by a calculation that compares the Remaining Story Points against the Total Story Points required to complete the feature (calculated using TFS Rippler’s aggregation facility).

In Pink outline we have the Total Story Points for a feature calculated by aggregating all the Effort estimates for the related Product Backlog Items – this total figure is then in turn used to help derive the Percentage Complete and ROI for the feature.

Outlined in Blue we have the ROI for the feature calculated by dividing its Business Value by the Total Story Points required to implement it.

In the next few blogs I’m going to show how to make all this work and delve into a lot more detail. For more information on TFS Rippler checkout the website.