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 T HE E X P ER T ’S VOIC E ® IN .NE T

Agile Project
Management
Using Team
Foundation
Server 2015
—
Joachim Rossberg

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 Agile Project
Management Using Team
Foundation Server 2015

Joachim Rossberg

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Agile Project Management Using Team Foundation Server 2015
Joachim Rossberg
Goteborg, Sweden
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-1869-3 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-1870-9
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-1870-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940378
Copyright © 2016 by Joachim Rossberg
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on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
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from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied
specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser
of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright
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This one is for Amelie, Eddie, and Karin.

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Contents at a Glance

About the Author ................................................................................................... xiii

About the Technical Reviewer .................................................................................xv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................xvii
Introduction ............................................................................................................xix

■Chapter 1: Introduction to Application Lifecycle Management ............................. 1

■Chapter 2: An Overview of TFS ............................................................................ 19
■Chapter 3: Introduction to Scrum and Agile Concepts ........................................ 37
■Chapter 4: Work Items and Process Templates ................................................... 65
■Chapter 5: Customizing the Process Template in TFS ......................................... 87
■Chapter 6: Agile Practices in TFS ...................................................................... 117
■Chapter 7: Metrics in Agile Projects .................................................................. 131
■Chapter 8: Agile Project Management in TFS .................................................... 147

Index ..................................................................................................................... 187

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Contents

About the Author ................................................................................................... xiii

About the Technical Reviewer .................................................................................xv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................xvii
Introduction ............................................................................................................xix

■Chapter 1: Introduction to Application Lifecycle Management ............................. 1

Aspects of the ALM Process ............................................................................................. 1
Four Ways of Looking at ALM ........................................................................................... 4
The SDLC View........................................................................................................................................ 5
The Service Management or Operations View ........................................................................................ 6
The Application Portfolio Management View .......................................................................................... 6
The Unified View ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Three Pillars of Traditional Application Lifecycle Management ........................................ 7

Traceability ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Automation of High-Level Processes ...................................................................................................... 8
Visibility into the Progress of Development Efforts ................................................................................ 9

A Brief History of ALM Tools and Concepts....................................................................... 9

Application Lifecycle Management 1.0................................................................................................. 10
Application Lifecycle Management 2.0................................................................................................. 12
Application Lifecycle Management 2.0+ .............................................................................................. 15

DevOps ........................................................................................................................... 17
Summary ........................................................................................................................ 18

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■ CONTENTS

■Chapter 2: An Overview of TFS ............................................................................ 19

Application Lifecycle Management Overview ................................................................ 19
Team Foundation Server Overview ................................................................................ 20
Team Foundation Server....................................................................................................................... 20
Process Template ................................................................................................................................. 22
Visual Studio 2015 Editions .................................................................................................................. 23
TFS Web ................................................................................................................................................ 24
Microsoft Office .................................................................................................................................... 24
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Integration ....................................................................... 24

Traceability ..................................................................................................................... 25
The TFS Work Item Tracking System .................................................................................................... 25

Visibility .......................................................................................................................... 30
Collaboration .................................................................................................................. 31
Work Items for Collaboration ................................................................................................................ 32
The Gap Between IT and Business ....................................................................................................... 33

Use of One Role-Based Tool ........................................................................................... 34

Extensibility .................................................................................................................... 34
Differences Between TFS and VSTS ............................................................................... 34
Summary ........................................................................................................................ 35
■Chapter 3: Introduction to Scrum and Agile Concepts ........................................ 37
The Scrum Framework ................................................................................................... 37
Empirical Process Control..................................................................................................................... 38
Complexity in Projects .......................................................................................................................... 39
What Scrum Is ...................................................................................................................................... 40
Roles in Scrum ..................................................................................................................................... 42
The Scrum Process............................................................................................................................... 43
Definition of Done ................................................................................................................................. 46
Agile Requirements and Estimation ..................................................................................................... 48
During the Sprint .................................................................................................................................. 51

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 ■ CONTENTS

Kanban ........................................................................................................................... 53
Start With What You Do Now ................................................................................................................. 54
Agree to Pursue Incremental, Evolutionary Change ............................................................................. 54
Respect the Current Process, Roles, Responsibilities, and Titles ......................................................... 54
The Five Core Properties ...................................................................................................................... 54
Common Models Used to Understand Work in Kanban ........................................................................ 57

Extreme Programming ................................................................................................... 58

Scaling Scrum ................................................................................................................ 59
SAFe ............................................................................................................................... 59
Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) ................................................................................... 61
How Agile Maps to ALM .................................................................................................. 63
Agile Captures Task-Based Work .......................................................................................................... 63
Increased Frequency of Inspection ....................................................................................................... 63
Many Tools Collect Much Information ................................................................................................... 63
Test Artifacts Are Important .................................................................................................................. 64
Agile Teams Plan Frequently................................................................................................................. 64

Summary ........................................................................................................................ 64
■Chapter 4: Work Items and Process Templates ................................................... 65
ALM Revisited................................................................................................................. 65
Traceability ..................................................................................................................... 66
The TFS Work Item Tracking System .................................................................................................... 66
Work Items ........................................................................................................................................... 67

The Process in TFS ......................................................................................................... 76

Agile, CMMI, and Scrum........................................................................................................................ 76

Summary ........................................................................................................................ 85

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■Chapter 5: Customizing the Process Template in TFS ......................................... 87

Process Customization ................................................................................................... 87
Modifying the Process Template In TFS On-Premise ............................................................................ 87
Common Adaptations of the Process Template .................................................................................... 90
Modifying the Process Template in Visual Studio Team Services ....................................................... 102

Summary ...................................................................................................................... 115

■Chapter 6: Agile Practices in TFS ...................................................................... 117
Agile Testing ................................................................................................................. 117
Acceptance Criteria ...................................................................................................... 118
Evolving Tests ............................................................................................................... 119
Clients for Managing Tests ................................................................................................................. 120

Test-Driven Development ............................................................................................. 122

Working with Automated Tests ..................................................................................... 123
Continuous Integration ................................................................................................. 123
Why Continuous Integration?.............................................................................................................. 124

Continuous Delivery ..................................................................................................... 126

Coding Standard ........................................................................................................... 127
Refactoring ................................................................................................................... 128
Pair Programming ........................................................................................................ 128
Summary ...................................................................................................................... 129
■Chapter 7: Metrics in Agile Projects .................................................................. 131
Project-Management Metrics....................................................................................... 131
Agile Metrics....................................................................................................................................... 131

Metrics for Architecture, Analysis and Design .............................................................. 136

Metrics for Developer Practices ................................................................................... 136
Code Coverage.................................................................................................................................... 137
Code Metrics....................................................................................................................................... 137
Compiler Warnings ............................................................................................................................. 137
Code Analysis Warnings...................................................................................................................... 138

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Metrics for Software Testing ........................................................................................ 138

Example Reports................................................................................................................................. 138

Metrics for Release Management ................................................................................ 141

Sample Reports .................................................................................................................................. 141

Using Charts to Monitor Metrics................................................................................... 143

Summary ...................................................................................................................... 145
■Chapter 8: Agile Project Management in TFS .................................................... 147
Case Study ................................................................................................................... 147
Company Background ........................................................................................................................ 147
The Pilot Project ................................................................................................................................. 148

Scrum Process ............................................................................................................. 148

TFS/VSTS Web Portal .......................................................................................................................... 149
Charts and Queries ............................................................................................................................. 150

Project Startup Phase................................................................................................... 152

PO Sets Off to Work ............................................................................................................................ 152
Building the Initial Team ..................................................................................................................... 153

Creating New Teams .................................................................................................... 154

The Backlog and Team Structure for the Fabrikam Pilot .................................................................... 157
Building the Teams ............................................................................................................................. 158

Adding Team Members ................................................................................................. 159

Managing VSTS Groups, Teams, and User’s Permission............................................... 161
Managing Alerts ........................................................................................................... 162
Requirements ..................................................................................................................................... 163
Building the Backlog........................................................................................................................... 164
Definition of Done (DoD) ..................................................................................................................... 166
Estimation........................................................................................................................................... 167
Risk Assessment ................................................................................................................................ 168
Refining the Backlog .......................................................................................................................... 169

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Initial Velocity ............................................................................................................... 169

Available Time..................................................................................................................................... 169
Capacity Planning in TFS .................................................................................................................... 170
Initial Sprint Planning ......................................................................................................................... 171
Updating Backlog and PBI .................................................................................................................. 172
Forecast in TFS ................................................................................................................................... 173

Release Planning .......................................................................................................... 175

Epics ................................................................................................................................................... 175
Estimated Time Plan ........................................................................................................................... 176

Estimated Project Cost ................................................................................................. 176

Scrum Meetings During the Sprint ............................................................................... 176
Sprint Planning ................................................................................................................................... 177
Daily Stand-Up .................................................................................................................................... 182
Retrieving Data from TFS/VSTS .......................................................................................................... 183
Backlog Refinement ........................................................................................................................... 185
Sprint Review ..................................................................................................................................... 185
Sprint Retrospective ........................................................................................................................... 186

Summary ...................................................................................................................... 186

Index ..................................................................................................................... 187

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About the Author

Joachim Rossberg has worked as an IT consultant since 1998. He is primarily a product owner and project
manager, but has an extensive history as a system developer/designer. Joachim is a certified Scrum Master
and Product Owner. He has also demonstrated his technical background with various achievements over
the years, including MCSD, MCDBA, MCSA, and MCSE. His specialties include agile project management,
ALM processes, and Team Foundation Server. Joachim now works for Solidify in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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About the Technical Reviewer

Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati is a senior consultant and a senior analyst/developer using Microsoft
technologies. He works for Blu Arancio (www.bluarancio.com). He is a Microsoft Certified Solution
Developer for .NET, a Microsoft Certified Application Developer for .NET, a Microsoft Certified Professional,
and a prolific author and technical reviewer. Over the past 10 years, he’s written articles for Italian and
international magazines and coauthored more than 10 books on a variety of computer topics.

xv

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to everyone who helped me through this book. No one mentioned, no one forgotten. Except for one
person I want to thank especially. Mathias Olausson, my coworker and manager, who wrote a great book
on Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio ALM 2015 for Apress. Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/
Continuous-Delivery-Visual-Studio-2015/dp/1484212738/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461920928&sr=
8-1&keywords=mathias+olausson.

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Introduction

This book covers agile project management using Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team Services.
It provides many examples from both of these versions of TFS. However, this is not a hands-on book, instead
it is aimed at providing useful information especially for product owners so that they know what TFS is and
how it can be used in an agile world.

xix

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Application
Lifecycle Management

What do you think about when you hear the term Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)? During a
seminar tour in 2005 in Sweden, presenting on Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, we asked people what
ALM was and whether they cared about it. To our surprise, many people equated ALM with operations and
maintenance. This is still often the case when we visit companies, although more people today are aware of
the term.
Was that your answer as well? Does ALM include more than just operations? Yes, it does. ALM is
the thread that ties the development lifecycle together. It involves all the steps necessary to coordinate
development lifecycle activities. Operations are just one part of the ALM process. Other elements range from
requirements gathering to more technical things like the build and deploy processes.

Aspects of the ALM Process

All software development includes various steps performed by people playing specific roles. There are many
different roles, or disciplines, in the ALM process, and we define some of them in this section. (The process
could include more roles, but we focus on the primary ones.)
Look at Figure 1-1, which illustrates ALM and some of its aspects. You can see the flow from the birth
of an application, when the business need first arises, to when the business need no longer exists and the
application dies. Once the thought of a new application (or system) is born, many organizations do some
portfolio rationalization. This means you discuss whether an existing system can handle the need or whether
a new system has to be developed. If a new system must be built, you enter the software development lifecycle
(SDLC) and develop the system, test it, and deploy the system into operation. This is the point at which
you do a handover so that operations can maintain and refine the system. Once in production, the system
(hopefully) delivers the intended business value until retirement. While in operation, the system usually
is updated or undergoes bug fixes; at such times, change requests (CRs) are written. For each CR, you go
through the same process again.

© Joachim Rossberg 2016 1

J. Rossberg, Agile Project Management using Team Foundation Server 2015,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-1870-9_1

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CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Figure 1-1. The Application Lifecycle Management process

It’s essential to understand that all business software development is a team effort. The roles require
collaboration in order to deliver business value to the organization. If you don’t have this collaboration,
the value of the system most likely will be considerably lower than it could be. One step up from the project
level, it’s also important to have collaboration between all roles involved in the ALM process, so that you
perform this process in the most optimal way.
The roles in the ALM process include, but aren’t limited to, the following:
• Stakeholders: Stakeholders are usually the people who either pay for the project or
have decision-making rights about what to build. We like to also include end users in
this group so not only management has a stake in a project.
• Business manager: Somebody has to decide that a development activity is going
to start. After initial analysis of the business needs, a business manager decides to
initiate a project to develop an application or system that will deliver the expected
business value. A business manager, for instance, must be involved in the approval
process for a new suggested project, including portfolio rationalization, before the
company makes a decision to go ahead. IT managers are also part of this process, of
course, because IT staff will probably be involved in the project’s development and
deployment into the infrastructure.
• Project manager, product owner, or Scrum master: Suitable individuals are selected
to fill these roles, and they set to work on the project after the company decides to go
ahead with the project. Ideally, these people continue leading the project all the way
through, so that you have continuity in project management.
• Project Management Office (PMO) decision makers: These individuals are also
involved in planning, because a new project may change or expand the company’s
portfolio.
• Business analyst: After requirements collection starts, the business analyst has much
to do. Usually, initial requirements are gathered when the business need arises,
but the real work often begins after portfolio rationalization. A business analyst is
responsible for analyzing the business needs and requirements of the stakeholders,
to help identify business problems and propose solutions. Within the system’s
development lifecycle, the business analyst typically performs a collaborative
function between the business side of an enterprise and the providers of services to
the enterprise.

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 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

• Architect: The architect draws an initial picture of the solution. We don’t go into detail
here, because Chapter 4 does that. But briefly, the architect draws the blueprint of the
system, and the system designers or engineers use this blueprint. The blueprint includes
the level of freedom necessary in the system: scalability, hardware replacement, new
user interfaces, and so on. The architect must consider all these issues.
• User experience (UX) design team: UX design should be a core deliverable and
not something you leave to the developers to handle. Unfortunately, it’s often
overlooked; it should be given more consideration. It’s important to have close
collaboration between the UX team (which could be just one person) and the
development team. The best solution is obviously to have a UX expert on the
development team throughout the project, but sometimes that isn’t possible. The UX
design is important in making sure users can perceive the value of the system. You
can write the best business logic in the world, but if the UX is badly designed, users
probably won’t think the system is any good.
• Database administrators (DBAs): Almost every business system or application uses
a database in some way. DBAs can make your databases run like lightning with good
up-time, so it’s essential to use their expertise in any project involving a database.
Be nice to them; they can give you lots of tips about how to make a smarter system.
Alas for DBAs, developers handle this work more and more frequently. This means
developers are expected to have vertical knowledge and not just focus on coding.
• Developers: “Developers, developers, developers!” as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
shouted in a famous video. And who can blame him? These are the people working
their magic to realize the system by using the architecture blueprint drawn from
the requirements. Moreover, developers modify or extend the code when change
requests come in.
• Testers: I’d rather not see testing as a separate activity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a
role, but testing is something you should consider from the first time you write
down a requirement and continue doing during the whole process. Testers and
test managers help you secure quality, but modern development practices include
testing by developers as well. For instance, in Test Driven Development (TDD),
developers write tests that can be automated and run at build time or as part of
checking in to version control.
• Operations and maintenance staff: When an application or system is finished, it’s
handed over to operations. The operations staff takes care of it until it retires, often
with the help of the original developers, who come in to do bug fixes and new
upgrades. Don’t forget to involve these people early in the process, at the point when
the initial architecture is considered, and keep them involved with the project until
everything is done. They can provide great input about what can and can’t be done
within the company infrastructure. So, operations is just one part—although an
important one—of ALM.
All project efforts are done collaboratively. No role can act separately from the others if you’re to
succeed with any project. It’s essential for everybody involved to have a collaborative mindset and to have
the business value as their primary focus at every phase of the project.
If you’re part of an agile development process, such as a Scrum project, you might have only three
roles: product owner, Scrum master, and team members. This doesn’t mean the roles just described don’t
apply, though! They’re all essential in most projects; it’s just that in an agile project, you may not be labeled a
developer or an architect. Rather, you’re a team member, and you and your co-members share responsibility
for the work you’re doing. We go deeper into the agile world later in the book (see Chapter 4).

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CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Four Ways of Looking at ALM

ALM is the glue that ties together the roles we just discussed and the activities they perform. Let’s consider
four ways of looking at ALM (see Figure 1-2). We’ve chosen these four because we’ve seen this separation in
many of the organizations we’ve worked with or spoken to:
• Software development lifecycle (SDLC) view: This is perhaps the most common
way of looking at ALM, because development has “owned” management of the
application lifecycle for a long time. This could be an effect of the gap between the
business side and the IT side in most organizations, and IT has taken the lead.
• Service management or operations view: Operations have also been (in our
experience) unfortunately separated from IT development. This has resulted in
operations having its own view of ALM and the problems in this area.
• Application Portfolio Management (APM) view: Again, perhaps because of the gap
between business and IT, we’ve seen many organizations with a portfolio ALM
strategy in which IT development is only one small part. From a business view, the
focus has been on how to handle the portfolio and not on the entire ALM process.
• Unified view: Fortunately, some organizations focus on the entire ALM process by
including all three of the preceding views. This is the only way to take control over,
and optimize, ALM. For a CIO, it’s essential to have this view all the time; otherwise,
things can easily get out of hand.

Figure 1-2. The four ways of looking at ALM

Let’s look at these four views in more detail, starting with the SDLC view.

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 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

The SDLC View

Let’s consider ALM from an SDLC perspective first. In Figure 1-3, you can see the different phases of a
typical development project and the roles most frequently involved. Keep in mind that this is a simplified
view for the sake of this discussion. We’ve also tried to fit in the different roles from the ALM process,
presented earlier.

Figure 1-3. A simplified view of a typical development project

First, somebody comes up with an idea based analyzing the business needs: “Hey, wouldn’t it be great
if we had a system that could help us do this (whatever the idea is)?” It can also be the other way around; the
idea comes first, and the business value is evaluated based on the idea.
An analysis or feasibility study is performed, costs are estimated, and (hopefully) a decision is made
by IT and business management to start an IT project. A project manager (PM) is selected to be responsible
for the project; the PM begins gathering requirements with the help of business analysts, PMO decision
makers, users, or others affected. The PM also starts planning the project in as much detail as possible at this
moment.
When that is done, the architect begins looking at how to realize the new system, and the initial design
is chosen. The initial design is evaluated and updated based on what happens during the project and
how requirements change throughout the project. Development beings, including work performed by
developers, user interface (UI) designers, and DBAs (and anyone else not mentioned here but important for
the project).
Testing is, at least for us, something done all along the way—from requirements specification to
delivered code—so it doesn’t get a separate box in Figure 1-3. We include acceptance testing by end users or
stakeholders in the Development box. After the system has gone through acceptance testing, it’s delivered
to operations for use in the organization. Of course, the process doesn’t end here. This cycle is generally
repeated over and over as new versions are rolled out and bug fixes are implemented.
What ALM does in this development process is support the coordination of all development lifecycle
activities by doing the following:
• Making sure you have processes that span these activities.
• Managing the relationships between development project artifacts used or produced
by these activities (in other words, providing traceability). These artifacts include
UI mockups done at requirements gathering, source code, executable code, build
scripts, test plans, and so on.
• Reporting on the progress of the development effort as a whole so you have
transparency for everyone regarding project advancement.
As you can see, ALM doesn’t support a specific activity: its purpose is to keep all activities in sync.
It does this so you can focus on delivering systems that meet the needs and requirements of the business.
By having an ALM process that helps you synchronize your development activities, you can more easily
determine if any activity is underperforming and thus take corrective actions.

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CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

The Service Management or Operations View

From a service management or operations view, you can look at ALM as in this quote from ITIL Application
Management by the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom (TSO, 2002): ALM “focuses on
the activities that are involved with the deployment, operation, support, and optimization of the application.
The main objective is to ensure that the application, once built and deployed, can meet the service level that
has been defined for it.”
When you see ALM from this perspective, it focuses on the life of an application or system in a
production environment. If, in the SDLC view, the development lifecycle starts with the decision to go
ahead with a project, here it starts with deployment into the production environment. Once deployed, the
application is operated by the operations crew. They handle bug fixes and change requests, and they also pat
the application on its back (so to speak) to make it feel good and run smoothly.
This is a healthy way of looking at ALM in our opinion: Development and operations are two pieces of
ALM, cooperating to manage the entire ALM process. You should consider both pieces from the beginning
when planning a development project; you can’t have one without the other.

The Application Portfolio Management View

In the APM view of ALM, you see the application as a product managed as part of a portfolio of products.
APM is a subset of Project Portfolio Management (PPM)1. Figure 1-4 illustrates this process.
This view comes from the Project Management Institute (PMI). Managing resources and the projects
they work on is very important for any organization. In Figure 1-4, you can see that the product lifecycle
starts with a business plan—the product is an application or system that is one part of the business plan.
An idea for an application is turned into a project and carried out through the project phases until it’s turned
over to operations as a finished product.
When business requirements change or a new release (an upgrade in Figure 1-4) is required for some
other reason, the project lifecycle starts again, and a new release is handed over to operations. After a while
(maybe years), the system or application is discarded (this is called divestment, the opposite of investment).
This view doesn’t specifically speak about the operations part or the development part of the process but
should instead be seen in the light of APM.

Figure 1-4. The APM view of ALM

1
The PMI is the world’s leading not-for-profit professional membership association for the project, program, and
portfolio management profession. Read more at www.pmi.org.

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 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

The Unified View

Finally, there is a unified view of ALM. In this case, an effort is made to align the previous views with the
business. Here you do as the CIO would do: you focus on the business needs, not on separate views. You do
this to improve the capacity and agility of a project from beginning to end. Figure 1-5 shows an overview of
the unified ALM view of a business.

Figure 1-5. The unified view takes into consideration all three views previously mentioned

You probably recognize this figure from Figure 1-1. We want to stress that with the unified view, you
need to consider all aspects from the birth to the death of an application or a system, hence the circle around
the figure.

Three Pillars of Traditional Application Lifecycle

Management
Let’s now look at some important pillars of ALM that are independent of the view you take; see Figure 1-6.
These pillars were introduced by Forrester Research.2

2
Dave West, “The Time Is Right For ALM 2.0+,” October 19, 2010, Forrester Research, www.forrester.com/
The+Time+Is+Right+For+ALM+20/fulltext/-/E-RES56832?objectid=RES56832.

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CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Figure 1-6. The three pillars of ALM

The following sections go over these pillars in greater detail, starting with traceability.

Traceability
Some customers we’ve seen have stopped performing upgrades on systems running in production because
their companies had poor or no traceability in their systems. For these customers, it was far too expensive to
do upgrades because of the unexpected effects even a small change could have. The companies had no way
of knowing which original requirements were implemented where in the applications. The effect was that
a small change in one part of the code might affect another part, which would come as a surprise because
poor traceability meant they had no way of seeing the code connection in advance. One customers claimed
(as we’ve heard in discussions with many other customers) that traceability can be a major cost driver in any
enterprise if not done correctly.
There must be a way to trace requirements all the way to delivered code—through architect models,
design models, build scripts, unit tests, test cases, and so on—not only to make it easier to go back into the
system when implementing bug fixes, but also to demonstrate that the system has delivered the things the
business wanted.
You also need traceability in order to achieve internal as well as external compliance with rules and
regulations. If you develop applications for the medical industry, for example, you must comply with FDA
regulations. You also need traceability when change requests come in so you know where you updated the
system and in which version you performed the update.

Automation of High-Level Processes

The next pillar of ALM automating high-level processes. All organizations have processes in some way or the
other. In some organizations there are no written down, formal processes, but they still have processes. For
example, approval processes control handoffs between the analysis and design or build steps, or between

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 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

deployment and testing. Much of this is done manually in many projects, and ALM stresses the importance
of automating these tasks for a more effective and less time-consuming process. Having an automated
process also decreases the error rate compared to handling the process manually.

Visibility into the Progress of Development Efforts

The third and last pillar of ALM is providing visibility into the progress of development efforts. Many
managers and stakeholders have limited visibility into the progress of development projects. The visibility
they have often comes from steering-group meetings, during which the project manager reviews the current
situation. Some would argue that this limitation is good, but if you want an effective process, you must
ensure visibility.
Other interest groups, such as project members, also have limited visibility of the entire project despite
being part of the project. This is often due to the fact that reporting is difficult and can involve a lot of manual
work. Daily status reports take too much time and effort to produce, especially when you have information
in many repositories.

A Brief History of ALM Tools and Concepts

You can resolve the three pillars of ALM manually if you want to, without using tools or automation.
(ALM isn’t a new process description, even though Microsoft, IBM, HP, Atlassian, and the other big software
houses are pushing ALM to drive sales of their respective ALM solutions.) You can, for instance, continue
to use Excel spreadsheets or, like one of our most dedicated agile colleagues, use sticky notes and a pad of
paper to track requirements through use cases/scenarios, test cases, code, build, and so on, to delivered
code. It works, but this process takes a lot of time and requires much manual effort. With constant pressure
to keep costs down, you need to make tracking requirements more effective.
Of course, project members can simplify the process by keeping reporting to the bare minimum. With
a good tool or set of tools, you can cut time (and thus costs) and effort, and still get the required traceability
you want in your projects. The same goes for reporting and other activities. Tools can, in our opinion, help
you be more effective and also help you automate much of the ALM process into the tool(s).
Having the process built directly into your tools helps prevent the people involved from missing
important steps by simplifying things. For instance, the agile friend we mentioned could definitely gain
much from this, and he is looking into Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) to see how that set of tools
can help him and his teams be more productive. Process automation and the use of tools to support and
simplify daily jobs are great because they can keep you from making unnecessary mistakes.
Serena Software Inc. is one supplier of ALM tools, and the company has interesting insight into ALM
and related concepts. According to Serena Software, there are eight ALM concepts:3
• Modeling: Software modeling
• Issue management: Keeping track of incoming issues during development and
operations
• Design: Designing the system or application
• Construction: Developing the system or application
• Production monitoring: The work of the operations staff

3
Kelly A. Shaw, PhD, “Application Lifecycle Management for the Enterprise,” Serena Software Inc., April 2007,
www.serena.com/docs/repository/company/serena_alm_2.0_for_t.pdf.

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Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Seeing this array of names, Mr Dyce may well add, when he asks,
“What ought a national collection of pictures to be?”—“extensiveness
will, I think, suggest itself as one of those characteristics.”
We are not denying that catalogues of this kind are of value—far
from it; they are parts of the history of Art; but surely a dictionary of
painters is one thing and a collection of pictures another. An army
and navy list are valuable documents, but would be rather unwieldy
national incumbrances if accompanied by each individual’s portrait
at full length—especially viewing the collection, as is the case with
this gallery scheme, “independently of merit.” It may be well said,
that it is absurd to think of such a scheme with our present building;
and it would be difficult to find a site of sufficient area for these
specimens by thousands, and at the same time provide for the
increase at the present ratio of art propagation.
We proceed to consider Mr Dyce’s pamphlet, or letter—happily not
very long—for we have seldom met with so much serious nonsense in
so few pages. He blunders on the very threshold of his work; for, as
shown, he makes extensiveness a characteristic, whereas it must be
but the accident of finding good things to collect. He considers it as a
museum, having evidently in view a collection of curiosities, the
thing above all others a National Gallery should not be. “Then, again,
as every collection has in view some definite purpose, the systematic
fulfilment of that purpose on the most enlarged basis—in other
words, systematic arrangement, and a wholeness or completeness in
relation to its particular purpose, seem necessary to the idea of a
national collection.” Words, words, words! all to envelop a
commonplace truth that no one need be told. Of course, every man,
woman, and child, having a “purpose,” should suit the matter in
hand to it. If the man had been destined to manufacture small-
clothes instead of writing about art, he wouldn’t begin at the wrong
end, and stitch on the buttons before he had cut out his shapes. Of
course, he would have had his arrangement and his “chronological”
measure too, and not put the boy’s fit on the aged father. There is no
end to writing in this style; there may be, if a writer pleases, miles of
verbiage before reaching a place of rest or tolerable entertainment,
without any prospect of the journey’s end. Then he goes on thinking,
and “thinks” what nobody ever doubted: “I think we may assume
that a public museum ought to fulfil its purpose” (so ought a pipkin)
—but more—“and, secondly, that the objects contained in it ought
not merely to be coextensive with that purpose, but illustrate it with
the greatest possible fulness and variety; that is to say, the collection
ought to be at once extensive and complete.” Extensive and complete
—or we would put it plainly, as with regard to the pipkin, that care
should be taken that as much be put into it as it will hold without
boiling over, preserving in the simmering every variety in the broth—
the meat, the bone, the fat, and the vegetables. Notwithstanding this
his very clear explanation, he immediately again gravely asks, “But
what are we to understand by the completeness of a collection of
pictures?” The reply to this question (a reply which may well
astonish any inquirer) “depends upon the view we take of its
purpose;” that is, to pursue our illustrations, whether the small-
clothes be to be made for grandson or grandfather; whether the
pipkin is to hold porridge for breakfast, or broth for supper. “Now
all, I imagine, will agree, that the object of our National Gallery is, to
afford instruction and enjoyment” (a discovery which he very shortly
annihilates, by taking out the enjoyment, and making the instruction
doubtful); “that it is, or ought to be, an institution where the learned
study art, and the unlearned enjoy it, where docti artis rationem
intelligunt, indocti sentiunt voluptatem; so that we have to consider
how that instruction and enjoyment which the gallery is calculated to
afford ought to be provided for.” Not a doubt of it. But why, Mr Dyce,
ride your poor hobby-horse round this circle? Don’t you see you
haven’t advanced ten paces beyond the stable door. In fact, you have
said but the same thing over and over again; but you have taken out
of the pack-saddle a scrap of Latin, which, however well it may
sound, and your own hobby may prick up his ears at it, is really a
piece of arrant nonsense; indeed the reverse of it is the truth; for it is
the unlearned, of course, who come to your lecture, that they may
understand, “intelligunt;” and the learned, the “docti,” they who
know something about the matter, only who can perceive, “sentiunt,”
the “voluptatem,” the pleasure of art. But we said Mr Dyce would
annihilate enjoyment, and see if he does not do the thing, and most
astonishingly. After the passage last quoted, follows: “Now, if there
be any, and at this time of day it is to be hoped there are very few,
who think that the purpose of the National Gallery will be served by
what in popular phrase is termed ‘a selection of the best works of the
best masters’” (we rejoice to find so sensible a phrase is popular), “I
will simply beg them to apply their opinion to the case of any section
of a national library to convince themselves how utterly untenable it
is.”
Now the Curiosity Museum is a Library, and a Museum of
Curiosities and a library are, ergo, moulded into one—a National
Gallery; whereas the materials will not amalgamate,—not one is a bit
like the other. To go on is really to get deeper and deeper into the
quagmire of nonsense, the only kind of depth to be met with in the
whole pamphlet. It must sadly have tired the patience of his Royal
Highness, if he did read it; and if Mr Dyce wrote it with any view of
giving his Royal Highness a lesson in the English language, which
was not needed, he has furnished as bad a “specimen” as could be
well met with. But to the matter and the argument:—“the best works
of the best masters” is as silly an idea, he thinks, as to supply a
library with the best dramatists, Shakespeare, of course, included.
He is an advocate for the worst, such as no one would read—and
why?—the very sound of it is truly asinine. “Would such a proceeding
be tolerated for a single moment? Would it be endured that they, that
any body of men, however eminent, should possess the right to
withhold from the public any attainable materials for literary
knowledge and criticism?”—for which purpose Mr Dyce does not
withhold this pamphlet. His materials it is not difficult to decide. It
certainly could never have been intended for knowledge but under
the greatest mistake; supposing it then to be for criticism, we take
him at his word, and indulge him accordingly, or, as he says, “in
relation to its particular purpose.” But he is not satisfied yet; having
nothing more to say, he must say that nothing in more words. He
continues—“that, in fact, they should have it in their power” (that is,
the any men, however eminent) “actually or virtually to pronounce a
judgment on the comparative merits of authors, the accuracy of
which could only be tested by the very comparison which the
judgment has the effect of preventing. Yet there is no difference
between such a proceeding and the restriction of the national
collection of pictures to such works as might happen to be
considered the best.” What a circular jumble of words is here!—“a
judgment on comparative merits” not to be pronounced, not to be
endured to be pronounced, because such judgment has the effect of
preventing the said judgment, which is here made at once both
desirable and undesirable.
 The reader sees how much nonsense may be comprised in less
than two pages, for we have not advanced further in the pamphlet. A
library, to be a good library, ought to contain the veriest rubbish,
even Mr Dyce’s letter, because without comparison therewith we
shall never be able to appreciate the styles of Swift, and Addison, and
Milton, nor Shakespeare’s dramas, without ransacking the
“condemned cells” of Drury Lane. And when at length, by these
forbidden comparisons, we have discovered the best works of the
best masters, it is not to be endured that “any men, however
eminent,” should prefer them to the worst, or at least not give the
worst equal honour. Our letter-writer thinks he strengthens his
argument by quotations from the evidence, which, if there be
anything in them, are quite against him, for they tend to show that
selection should be of the best: thus Mr Solly is asked, Q. 1855—“Is it
your opinion the study of these earlier masters is likely to lead to a
purer style on the part of our own painters, than of the later and
more effeminate school?”—“Certainly. I perfectly agree with the
questions that have just been put to me, and I am not aware that I
could add anything to them, as I think they comprehend all that I
should have thought of suggesting myself upon the subject.”
It would have been surprising if Mr Solly had not agreed with
questions so manufactured by epithets—for “purer” and “effeminate”
make an undeniable difference. The questioner might as well have
said, Don’t you think good better than bad? Don’t you think virtue
better than vice? This is a specimen of the art of dressing up a false
fact, to knock down with it a true one; but even here, according to the
Dycian theory, the only earthly reason for preferring the purer is that
it is the earlier; if the effeminate had by chance changed places with
it, it would have had his chronological post of honour.
In his next quotation the pamphleteer is intent on giving a blow to
his compeers of the English school. Mr Leigh confirms Mr Solly’s
view—is questioned, Q. 1913: “You say the more chaste works of the
Italian school—do you refer to an earlier era?”—“I allude to that
particular period so justly referred to in the questions put to Mr
Solly.” Q. 1914: “Do you mean the historical painters who were
contemporaneous or prior to Raffaelle?”—“Yes.” Q. 1915: “You prefer
these to the schools of Bologna?”—“Yes; it is a school whose works
we are exceedingly in want of, to enable us to correct the tendency of
the English style towards weakness of design, effeminacy of
composition, and flauntiness of colouring.” But Mr Dyce has
altogether forgotten his own rule, that it is not to be endured to give
a judgment, &c.—that is, to pronounce what is good, what is “best”
and “of the best,” and that if proved best, we have nothing whatever
to do with that accident. We have just warned the public, by showing
the probable number of specimens for this new “Old Curiosity Shop,”
to be called our National Gallery. Page 18, Mr Dyce says, “Still, if it be
remembered that only fifteen years after the commencement of the
Royal Gallery of Berlin it possessed works of all classes, from the
rude Byzantine down to productions of the last century, to the
number of nearly twelve hundred, we need entertain no great
misgiving as to the possibility of forming even a very considerable
collection within a moderate period.” The public, we hope, do
entertain a very great misgiving of the consequences of so frightful
an inundation, especially as it is to begin with the rude Byzantine.
But as the “rude Byzantine” may stand as high art, or fine art, in
comparison with still more rude beginnings; and as antiquity lore is
ever increased as it looks backward, and is not confined to country,
there may be cause for misgiving whether there may not be an
attempt to ransack China and Japan for new old schools—to discover
picture mines in Peru, for monstrosities in paint and design; for all
become legitimate sources under the ever-growing chronological
mania, this outrageous pedantry of the “The history of Art.” And here
the writer of the pamphlet, having perhaps momentary misgivings
himself as to the quality of the stuff to be collected, goes backwards
and forwards in oscillating contradictions, from best to any
specimens, and from any specimens to best, ending in such wise
conclusion as he generally comes to, that it is “best” to get the “best”
specimens we can, but no matter whether we get them or not,
provided we get any. For he insists that the one object is to have “a
collection illustrative of the history of the art, and “(in italics)” the
formation of it must be undertaken expressly with that view.”
Moreover, “secondly, that though it be desirable that all works
collected should be of the highest order—that is to say” (he loves to
explain himself thus by duplicate) “that every master should be
represented by one or more of his best works, yet as such works are
not essential to the completeness of the collection, considered as an
historical series, but serve rather to enrich it as a mere assemblage of
beautiful works,” &c. &c. Can anything show more his contempt of
mere beautiful works, as in no way being an object in collecting? In
fact, the whole pamphlet is to recommend, if not to enforce, the
gathering together an enormous mass of curiosity lumber, and
building a labyrinth of “Chambers of Horrors” to hold them. And it
must be taken into account that this absurd, this tasteless scheme, is
not confined to pictures. It is proposed, in most views of our future
gallery, that statues are to be added, and architecture is to claim its
due share as one of the Fine Arts; and where are we to begin, and
where end? Is statuary to find its rude commencement in the
“Cannibal Islands,” its progress in Tartary, its rise and deification in
joss-houses, Burmah furnishing “specimens,” even the wheels of
Juggernaut moving slowly and majestically to a new enthronement
in Kensington Gardens, or wherever our grand, national,
amalgamated museum is to be? Pagodas will yield up their
deformities to the new idolatry of chronological worshippers; the old
monsters of Nineveh will be revived; and to prove Lord Jeffrey to be
right, that there is no principle of beauty, many a hideous image will
in arrangement claim affinity to the Venus de Medicis and the Apollo
Belvidere. Really, all this is but a natural consequence of the first
step in the system. It is to be, not art, but a history of art, to be shown
by “specimens;” nor will it do to bring a brick even from Babylon as a
specimen of its architecture. The public may rejoice in its ruin, or it
would have to be brought in bodily, and a hundred or two crystal
palaces added to our wonder of the world; as it is, there must be an
“hiatus maxime deflendus.” We should have architecture, and
“specimens” of architects of all the several countries and schools, as
of pictures and painters. The English progress would be delightful to
see. Holingshed says, that within the memory of many in his days,
chimneys were rare; of course we must have “specimens.” We might
go on indeed to weary the reader with absurdities, and it would only
be following out Mr Dyce’s chronological idea in all its collateral
branches; for, getting warm in riding his hobby, his heated
imagination looks out for inconceivable vanishing points, which
recede as fast as he finds them, till he sees in the unbounded space of
art, which he thinks he has himself created, arts and sciences flying
about in every direction, and crossing each other like so many
dancing comets. The reader must look for a little incomprehensible
language and confused utterance when Mr Dyce descends, having
breathed the bewildering gas of his extraordinary sphere, to put his
thoughts on paper, and thus he writes: “What I was going to say was
in substance this—that if the idea of a complete museum of the fine
arts involved the illustration of decorative art, and of physical science
in its relation to art, to an extent which, though not unlimited, is
nevertheless indefinite, if the vanishing point” (the italics of Mr
Dyce), “so to speak, of such a museum lies somewhere in the region
of practical science, one is immediately led to consider whether, as
the reverse is true—viz., that practical science finds its vanishing
point in the region of fine art—the true idea of a museum of arts
would not be that which embraced the whole development of the
artistic faculty, and commenced, therefore, on the one hand, with
those arts which are solely, or almost solely, dependant on æsthetical
science, and terminated on the other with those which are solely or
chiefly dependant on physical science. Such an institution would
start at the one extreme from physical science, and at the other from
fine art; and these two would meet and cross one another, the
influence of each vanishing and disappearing towards the opposite
extremes.” So that, if there is anything to be understood and
unriddled from this confusion of wordy ideas, it is this, that these
arts and sciences, æsthetical and physical, do not meet to kiss and be
friends, but to cross each other, and, having simply blazed awhile in
each other’s faces, to fly off to their own vanishing points, more
distant than ever, disappearing beyond the hope of that happy
junction which, nevertheless, it had been the whole purpose of Mr
Dyce’s pamphlet to bring about, and which, perhaps, he thinks he
has brought about, or intends to bring about, unconscious of the
impossibility which he has set in their way.
Lest the reader think we have needlessly brought in this body of
architecture, we must again quote Mr Dyce. He certainly, to do him
justice, does admit that specimens of architecture may be too big; but
if he enumerates and measures his “fragmentary remains” from the
British Museum and elsewhere, “models of whole structures, or
models and casts of details,” “adequate to the great purpose of
exhibiting the development of architecture, both as it is a science and
a fine art, in all the various stages of its history,” and if some genii
could bring them all together and throw the brick and plaster down
before him, we doubt if his, or any known human agility, would
enable him to escape the being buried under the dust that would be
made by the deposit.
“But secondly, there is a peculiarity in the case of architecture
which deserves to be specially noticed. It is this:—that the examples
required to illustrate the history of architectural construction and
decoration lead us at once into the province of practical science and
of decorative art; and thus the door is opened to a more extended
view of the contents of a National Gallery of Art.” When he told us in
the commencement that extensiveness was one of the characteristics
of a National Gallery, we never thought of an extensiveness that
should have no termination. The opening of this, his one door, shows
a wearying vista—but there are so many doors to open to “complete”
his scheme, that it is past all comprehension where he will find door-
keepers, or the nation means to pay them.
Let us imagine these ten thousand chronological galleries built,
and inhabited by all the arts and sciences. Who could preside over
such a seraglio of beauties and uglinesses?—who could possibly know
anything about one-half of them? We should doubt even Mr Dyce’s
powers to interpret their languages, which would be wanted,
considering that the object in view is instruction in their history. And
yet Mr Dyce, in his scheme of government for the National Gallery,
looks to some one “coming man.” “Some officer should be appointed
to take charge of all business relating to the National Gallery, to be
responsible for the immediate management, and to whom the public
should look for the success or failure of the undertaking.” He must be
a very wonderful man indeed: if Mr Dyce has any such in his eye, he
ought to have named him; for no one besides ever saw a man on
earth equal to so much; and if he is to be general instructor too, he
would be wondered at, as when
“——still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.”

Yet upon the appointment of this one officer Mr Dyce again insists in
the conclusion of his letter, and under the idea of his duty embracing
sculpture and architecture, as well as painting, under which heads
also are included unlimited and undefined æsthetical and practical
arts and sciences.
 In our former articles on the National Gallery, we advocated the
appointment of one responsible person; in what then, it may be
asked, do we differ from Mr Dyce? Simply, that we would confine his
attention to one thing which he might be able to know—to the
collection of pictures. Even if it were thought desirable to place
statues under the same building, we would put them under the
direction of a person specially acquainted with sculpture.
The interest of the nation has been now awakened with regard to
the National Gallery, to the pictures only, to their collection and
preservation. A national museum, such as Mr Dyce and others
propose, is far too large a subject, to discuss which seriously would
be only drawing away the public mind from that which is a pressing
necessity. As the system holds at present, we are neither able to buy
pictures properly, nor to preserve them when we have them. Mr
Dyce’s own experience in the art qualifies him to speak upon this
point, and in justice to him we add, that, excepting the times when
the chronological mania is upon him, he writes fairly and sensibly;
and we willingly add his modicum of assent to the general opinion,
upon the matters which the blue-book has brought before the public.
Indeed, in this pamphlet he has two styles of writing: the pages
might be well thought the work of two hands. Whatever relates to his
chronological scheme is redundant, confused, and ambitiously
laboured. He does not appear very clearly to know what he has to
say. He is, we suppose, in the midst of his theoretic arrangements, as
a painter of eminence visited with some misgivings as to the
worthless trash the fulfilment of his scheme would introduce. He
writes like one under an adopted whim, against his first instincts,
with the verbosity of an untutored and awkward advocate. When he
knows clearly what he is writing about, he writes like other people.
He successfully exonerates the keepers of the National Gallery,
those appointed subsequently to Mr Seguier, from much of the blame
that had been cast upon them. He shows that the responsibility had
been, for the most part, taken out of their hands, with regard to the
purchase of pictures; that the trustees superseded the keepers, and
were afterwards themselves superseded by the Treasury as to active
operations. The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, from the
nature of their appointment, are sure to be more incompetent than
the trustees themselves. It is in evidence that the Lords of the
Treasury had no confidence in the trustees; nor, perhaps, much in
themselves. Therefore, in 1845, when the trustees recommended the
purchase of the Guido from Mr Buchanan, the Treasury do not
comply with the request unconditionally—they require Mr Seguier to
be consulted as to the condition of the picture; and also “two other
eminent judges of the merit and pecuniary value of Italian pictures.”
They even point out the individuals for selection: “Mr Woodburn and
Mr Farrer might probably be selected with advantage for the
purpose, or any others whom Mr Eastlake might consider
preferable.” The Lords of the Treasury then preferred the opinion of
two dealers in pictures to that of the trustees or Mr Eastlake; the
latter being more competent than all the others put together to
decide upon the subject. The only surprising thing is, that the
trustees, upon this slight put upon them, did not resign their
appointments, which, if honourable in other respects, were now
marked with the character of incompetency. We have already
strongly insisted that picture-dealers should in no case be consulted.
They are too much interested, and wish to keep up the value
(artificial) of pictures; and the world knows too well the nature of
their trafficking, to place implicit confidence in their decisions. We
say not that a judicious choice might not be made of skilful and
honourable men; but looking to all times, and with some knowledge
of the temptations of trade, we should be sorry to see the practice of
consulting dealers become a habit or a rule. Take the case which has
occurred—the Treasury nominate judges; at a subsequent meeting of
the trustees these very judges have pictures to be recommended—are
other trading judges to be called in? In that case decisions will have
to go the round of these dealer judges. They will either be shy of
pronouncing against the interests of each other, or be under the
temptation to give each other a good turn, or, at any rate, keep up the
market, which they themselves supply. The public have of late been
let a little too much into the secrets of picture trafficking, and of
picture manufacturing. Is there truth in the exposure that an
overbaked would-be Raffaelle was spoiled for that master, but would
make an admirable Correggio? With all the respect we owe to
individuals, we confess that there is a strong resemblance between
picture-dealing and horse-dealing. The habit of appointing dealers as
judges would certainly end in a council of dealers, who would, in
actual operation, supersede all others. The fiat of the Treasury
transferred to the fiat of Wardour Street. We are glad to quote Mr
Dyce on this subject:—“This, then, is the present state of matters.
The right to entertain a proposal to purchase any picture rests with
the trustees; the ultimate opinion of its merits, on which the
purchase depends, is not theirs, but that of certain ‘eminent judges’
of such points. The trustees decide what may be and shall be
purchased, if it be worth purchasing; the eminent judges decide
whether it be worth purchasing, and worth the money asked for it. It
may be said that this is an extreme and exaggerated case; that the
Treasury, though reposing confidence in the recommendation of the
trustees, might nevertheless think it desirable, on several accounts,
to have this recommendation fortified by the opinions of eminent
judges. True: but as it cannot be supposed that the trustees would
press a recommendation, in any case, in the face of an adverse
opinion given by the judges they had summoned to their assistance—
in other words, since they cannot make a recommendation at all
without both summoning such assistance, and obtaining a favourable
opinion—it is perfectly clear that the favourableness of opinion they
have obtained, not their concurrence in it, must be looked upon by
the Treasury as the real warrant for adopting their recommendation.
Nor, on the other hand, is it refining too much to say that the ex
officio trusteeship of the heads of the financial department of the
Government, not only annihilates the responsibility of the trustees,
but prevents the due exercise of the control which that department
ought to have over their proceedings.”... “If the trustees were to be
superseded in a matter of such importance, they surely ought to have
been consulted, not only as to the manner in which they might, with
the greatest advantage, avail themselves of professional assistance,
but as to the class of persons who were to afford it. But no discretion
was left to them; and who, let me ask, were the ‘eminent judges’ fixed
upon by the Treasury? Will it be believed that not only the class of
persons, but the very individuals chosen to give an opinion, on which
the purchase of pictures was to depend, were those who were in the
habit of offering, and actually at the time were offering pictures to
the trustees for sale? At the very meeting (held February 2, 1846) at
which the communication from the Treasury was read, I find the
trustees considering a proposal for the sale of a collection of pictures
by Mr Woodburn, one of the judges nominated by the Treasury. At
the next meeting (held March 2, 1846), I find that “the trustees again
took into consideration the offer of a picture, by Spagnoletti, for sale
by Mr Farrer,” the other “eminent judge” recommended by the
Treasury. So that, in fact, the “eminent judges” were by turns
competitors for the patronage of the trustees, and by turns sat in
judgment on one another’s wares.”
Constitutions grow—they are not made. We never knew one from
any manufactory, paper-made, that could hold together; yet we go on
with the conceit that we have consummate skill in that line; we make
ourselves, as it were, sole patentees for all people and nations, and
wonder at the folly of those who reject the commodity, and yet we
never attempt the thing on a small scale at home, or a large one
abroad, but the result is a failure. The School of Design is a parallel
case with the National Gallery. The committee of management of
that school was in the same relation with the Board of Trade as the
National Gallery with the Treasury. The action of the body was
stopped if no official representative of the Board of Trade was
present; and if present, the council felt themselves to be a nullity. Yet
the council could not at once be easily dismissed, for the
Parliamentary grant was voted for the council of the School of
Design. In 1842, therefore, this constitution is remodelled. The
School is put “under the management of a director and of a council,
subject to the control of the Board of Trade.” But here again is a
failure. The council and director cannot arrange responsibilities. The
director resigns, another succeeds: as before, there is no working
together. The constitution has to be remodelled again. The Board of
Trade takes the management, assisted by the artist members of the
old council. This fails also; and at last that is done which should have
been done at the beginning—an officer is appointed, “under the
authority of the Board of Trade, to superintend and be responsible
for the business of the schools.”
In our democratic tendencies we are jealous of one responsible
director; and, on the other hand, with our aristocratic tastes and
habits, we devolve upon men of rank and wealth, solely on account of
their rank and wealth, duties which they are not qualified to perform
(and, we think, the greater honour would consist in their declining
such positions), and which, if in other respects qualified to perform,
they will not, simply because it is not their distinct personal business,
and of a paid responsibility. And thus it is that the really qualified
persons, eminent for their knowledge in art, science, and habits of
business, are ever excluded. Can we be surprised if there be
perpetual failures?
The best boon the trustees of the National Gallery can confer upon
the nation, is to resign in a body. Surely there is now little to induce
them to remain where they are, and as they are. This step would
compel the Government to do what they have found it necessary to
do in other cases—appoint a paid and responsible minister; and, if it
be thought worth while to have a National Gallery at all, to provide
liberally the means of obtaining it. It will never do, on every trifling
occasion, to have to go to Parliament, and to be met in a huckstering
spirit. We must break some of the shackles which the modern
utilitarian school is ever imposing; we must learn to view the fine
arts as a constitutional part of the liberal arts, which must be treated
liberally, if we would have them permanently established.
We must now return for a little space to the subject which, in the
commencement of this paper, we proposed to discuss: “What are we
to collect?” We shall make a great mistake indeed, if we are led by Mr
Dyce as an authority, to pass contempt upon either the works of, or
the admiration felt for, the genius of the greatest men in art—if we
put chronological series in competition with excellence. He overdoes
his part, and can gain nothing by such language as this:—“Turgid,
unmeaning panegyrics of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Titian,
Correggio, and the rest.” These “and the rest” are such pre-eminently
great masters, that, in some shape or other, we would have their
works ever before the public. Where we cannot have originals, we
would have copies, and the best that either have been made and can
be acquired, or that can now be made. We cannot think a gallery
perfect without them. We would have a portion set apart especially
for copies of the best works, and also for prints. In them we might
have the designs, and the light and shade, the great and beautiful
ideas represented: and here we cannot but lament, that the
perfection to which the art of engraving has been brought should in
this country be given up to inferior and almost to worthless things.
Our engravings indicate the public taste, the causes of the low state
of which we have already remarked upon. If there be really a desire
to instruct the public—and without instruction there will not be an
encouragement for a better devotion of that beautiful art—let the
collecting the best engravings, whether old or new, be a great object
with the purveyors of a National Gallery. Nor would we have the
grand works to which we allude put away in portfolios, but glazed,
and hung upon walls specially appropriated to them. Let us have, at
least, good things—the best originals we can procure, and the next
best, copies, and engravings of the best; and not waste time and
squander means in searching out for chronological histories, the
attenuated deformities of the Byzantine schools, the hideous
performances of those predecessors in art, who had not yet acquired
the knowledge of drawing with any tolerable correctness.
We are earnest to make this protest against the chronological
scheme, and we hope it will be dissipated by the general voice,
because Mr Dyce’s pamphlet seems to have found favour in the eyes
of the commissioners. They almost adopt his language—or at least,
with little variation of phrase, his argument, and his illustration.
They too speak of an “intelligent public,” which has no existence as to
art, and is but the translation of Mr Dyce’s Latin quotation, “docti
artis rationem intelligunt.” With him, they snub the admirers of
“Raffaelle, Titian, and Correggio,” and adopt his literary illustration,
and a very bad illustration it is, for the rubbish of books in the world
is even greater in bulk than the picture rubbish. Some of the book
rubbish may indeed bear affinity to art, and come within the scope of
the scheme’s arrangement. The woodcuts of our earliest spelling-
books, of Jack the Giant-killer, of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the
“specimens” heading last dying speeches and confessions, may yet be
discovered with some pains, and no very large cost, if a
Parliamentary commission would bespeak Mr Dyce’s acceptable
labours. How gratifying to such collectors would it be to trace the rise
and progress of that particular branch of the art now so much in
fashion, from the earliest “specimens” of designs in popular editions
of Æsop’s Fables, to Mr Landseer’s last costly print. Nor should the
old glazed picture tiles, that used to amuse our early childhood, when
the glow of fire-light illuminated the “animali parlanti,” warmed our
young affections, and heated our incipient imaginings, be omitted.
The “intelligent public” might perhaps hence learn not only a little in
the history of art and its progress, but somewhat also of the history
and progress of cruelty, when they see how much artistic labour has
been bestowed, and what a large price is given, in our modern
improvement days, in getting up and in the sale of that “perfect
specimen,” Mr Landseer’s “Otter Hunt,” where the poor creature is
writhing upon the spear of the huntsman, and the howling brute
dogs are in sympathetic delight with the human bigger brute than
themselves. It will be then not uncreditable if the “intelligent public”
retrograde in their taste, and for once agree with Mr Dyce in rather
admiring the attenuated and ill-drawn deformities, which, after all
that can be said against them, were a less libel upon man and brute
than some later and more perfect “specimens.” To this extent the
chronological idea must go for completion, for Mr Dyce, the favourite
of connoisseurs and dilettanti, will not allow them to stop short of it.
“Notwithstanding appearances,” he says, “I do not imagine the
trustees of the National Gallery ever seriously contemplated the
establishment of an index expurgatorius of pictures.” Such opinions
he considers obsolete. We must have all “specimens,” however bad;
for he says, in emphatic italics—“The collection can aim at no lower
object than to exhibit the whole development of the art of painting;
the examples of which it consists must therefore range over its
whole history!” The “ςηματα λυγρα” of Zellerophon were not of a
more deadly character than would the contemplated collection be to
all true notions of the Beautiful in art—the collection of
inhumanities, the doleful horrors of saints and demons, and worse
and more awful representations which preceded perceptions of the
Beautiful.
We ought to be glad to learn from any who know better than
ourselves, but we very much question if our perpetual appeal to the
practice of foreign galleries, in the way in which it is made, is at all a
healthy sign. We are not sure that some of the examples we seek may
not rather be warnings. It is a confession of imbecility and mistrust
in themselves of trustees and commissioners. Foreign architects,
foreign directors, and foreign galleries, bear too prominent a part in
our blue-books and our pamphlets. We are confident in our own
men, if not in the “intelligent public.” We have men quite able to
devise galleries, and to know how to fill them. The misfortune has
been, not that we lack men of ability, but we do not employ them.
And why? Our governments have no better taste, no better
knowledge, no better desires, with regard to the arts, than the
“intelligent public.” They have never entertained serious views upon
the subject. In conclusion, we would ask if the series of Hogarth’s
pictures have been removed from our National Gallery, on which
they conferred an honour and importance of a kind that no other
gallery in Europe can boast of possessing, with the object of forming
a chronological series of the British school. We hope to see them
transferred to their old places. Our National Gallery should not be
deteriorated, to give a grace to Marlborough House, however much it
may want it.
 THE REFORM BILLS OF 1852 AND 1854.

The postponement of the second reading of Lord John Russell’s new

Reform Bill, until a later, and it may be a protracted period of the Session,
is suggestive of some important considerations. It shows, in the first place,
that even the author of the bill is by no means confident in his power of
carrying it through the House of Commons, else we may be perfectly
certain that no departure from the original arrangements would have
taken place. It shows, moreover, that other members of the Cabinet—or,
we should rather say, the members of the Cabinet collectively—do not
consider the provisions of this measure of so much importance as to
justify them in allowing it to interfere with the more immediate exigencies
of the state. In one sense of the word, Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues
are thoroughly conservative. They want to keep their places; and they have
no idea whatever of sacrificing themselves through the impulse of
Quixotic gallantry, or of allowing Lord John Russell’s pledges to imperil
their tenure of office. But they have an obstinate and pragmatical man to
deal with, and cannot afford to affront him. Without Lord John Russell,
the Coalition could not stand, and therefore, in some matters, they are
compelled to allow him more license than is agreeable to their own
inclination, or in accordance with the interests of the country. Thus, they
not only permitted him to prepare his measure during the recess, but they
gave it real importance, by introducing it as a material part of the
ministerial programme, as announced by her Majesty from the throne. At
that time there was no more probability of a pacific settlement of the
Eastern question than exists just now; so that every objection to the
measure, founded on the impropriety of exciting internal agitation at such
a crisis, must have been foreseen. There was still time before the
development of the measure, and the publication of its intended details, to
have postponed it without any loss of credit. No one would have blamed
the Ministry had they done so—even the most ardent reformer could
scarcely have maintained that they were bound to force it through
Parliament, just as if no war were expected, or as if the country
emphatically demanded it. But Lord John Russell would not consent to
that. He was determined that the whole details of his project should be
laid before the public; and he accordingly did so in a speech which fell flat
on the ear alike of the House and of the country. He fixed a day for the
second reading; but before that day arrived, postponed his bill until a later
period of the Session, with a statement that, even then, it would depend
upon circumstances whether he should proceed with it or not.
This is not such conduct as the country has a right to expect from the
ministers of the Crown. They were entreated, both by friends and
opponents, not to bring forward their measure in the midst of warlike
preparations, and in the total absence of any demand on the part of the
country for an immediate change in the representation. Those entreaties
were met by silly, bombastical, and vapouring speeches about the sublime
spectacle which Great Britain would afford to the world, if, while waging
war abroad, she applied her energies to the remodelment of the
constitution at home! We need not pause now to demolish that most
pitiful pretext. It has virtually been given up by the Ministry; for they now
acknowledge, that the time originally fixed for the second reading of the
English bill was not seasonable; and they indicate, that if we should be
actively engaged in war on the 27th of April, the bill will not be proceeded
with; so that the notion of the “sublime spectacle” is thrown aside, whilst
the cause of the irritation, made worse by the divulgence of the scheme in
detail, is still continued.
No really united cabinet would have ventured to act in such a manner. It
is in vain to tell us of concert and cordiality, when the public measures of
one week belie the bragging language used in that which immediately
preceded it—when bluster is followed by postponement, and extreme
recklessness by an affectation of patriotic caution. The prevalent opinion
is, that the bill will not be proceeded with; and if the Ministry had said
even so much as that, there would have been no occasion for any further
discussion; but they will not say it. Lord Aberdeen, on the 9th of March,
when urged by Earl Grey to withdraw the bill altogether, is reported to
have replied, that “the second reading of the bill had been postponed by
Lord John Russell till the 27th of April, in sincerity and good faith.
Whether it would then be proceeded with, depended upon the state of
Europe; for no one could tell what a day or an hour would bring forth.
Government, however, would act consistently with the interests of the
country, and with a due regard to their own honour.”
We cannot predict what the Government may do hereafter, but we know
what they have already done with respect to this matter; and it is our
humble but deliberate opinion, that they have neither consulted the
interests of the country nor their own collective credit. We should have
been very glad, indeed, had they allowed the subject to drop; for we
should then have been spared the necessity of criticising their conduct.
But, threatened as we are, though by no means agitated or alarmed by the
suspension of a most clumsy weapon over our heads, we must take the
liberty of reviewing the proceedings of these Dionysians.
Let us assume, which we really believe and devoutly hope to be the case,
that, notwithstanding the professions about sincerity and good faith, this
bill has been absolutely sent to limbo. Let us look upon it in the light of a
scheme abandoned. That, however, cannot acquit Ministers from the
serious charge of having played fast and loose with the country, by
embodying in the Queen’s speech, at the opening of Parliament, a distinct
recommendation of internal organic change, when war was staring us in
the face. They knew then perfectly well that there existed no probability of
the settlement of the Eastern dispute without a direct appeal to arms; and
it was their bounden duty to have interdicted the mooting of such a
question at such a time. We maintain, that no cabinet has a right to
countenance this species of deception. No specific measure should be
announced by a Ministry, much less recommended by the Crown, unless it
is seriously intended that it shall be carried through, not at some
indefinite future period, but in the course of the existing session. This is
not the first time that the country has been annoyed by this indecent and
reprehensible practice, introduced, we believe, by Lord John Russell, of
rash ministerial pledges. We do not think that even a premier is entitled,
towards the close of one session, to announce distinctly the ministerial
policy of the next, or to bind himself by a specific pledge; for even a
premier is not allowed by our constitutional custom to act autocratically—
he must carry along with him at least the majority of the Cabinet. He
cannot accurately predict who may be his colleagues at the opening of the
ensuing session—he cannot foresee what events may occur or causes arise
to render a change of the intended policy not only expedient, but
necessary. If a premier is not entitled to do this, still less is a subordinate
like Lord John Russell; and yet we see him, session after session, blabbing
about future schemes, and pledging himself unconditionally to their
introduction. This is really intolerable, and it is full time that the nuisance
should be abated. If the noble lord is of opinion that, notwithstanding all
which we have heard and seen, he has still power and reputation enough
to head an independent party—let him leave the Cabinet, and then, as a
plain member of Parliament, he may pledge himself to his heart’s content.
But while he remains a minister and servant of the Crown, he is bound to
maintain the dignity of his position, and preserve a due decorum, instead
of acting like a popularity-hunter and a partisan. Of late he has let himself
down woefully. We are not accustomed, in this country, to see ministers,
while in office, engaging in literary squabbles—and exposing themselves
to damaging rejoinders by petulant paragraphs and absolutely deplorable
sneers. Their duty is, not to write or edit gossip and scandal, but to devote
themselves, heart and soul, to the affairs of the nation and the service of
their sovereign; and, if they are not willing to abandon their favourite
pursuits, they ought at once to withdraw. With less than this the nation
will not be satisfied; and we really think we are acting a friendly part to
Lord John Russell to tell him so, in as many words. If he doubts our
sincerity, let him ask the opinion of his colleagues upon the point; and we
are ready to stake our existence that they will be unanimous in their
agreement with us. We believe also, that, if the question were fairly put
them, they would be unanimous in recommending him, for the future, so
long as he is a member of the Cabinet and acting along with them, to
abstain from that system of specific pledging, the result of which, in the
present instance, has by no means tended to raise them in the estimation
of the country.
But it may be asked, why, when the Ministry have postponed for the
present, and may abandon, the Reform Bill, we should harp upon a string
not intended, for some time at least, to vibrate in the ear of the country?
To that we reply that we have many good reasons for doing so. The
vibration has already been made. If a man is told that it was intended, by
virtue of a parliamentary act for which Ministers were to be responsible,
to make some decided change in his property or condition, but that, in
respect of certain external circumstances, it was deemed expedient to
allow him a respite—surely he is entitled to use the interval in examining
into the nature of the proposed change; and, if need be, in preparing his
defence. It would perhaps be too strong a phrase to say that we know what
is to come—for Lord John Russell is such an experimentalist, so entirely
dependent upon suggestions from others, and so utterly devoid of any
fixed principles to guide his own judgment, that no one can venture to
predict what his views may be six months from the present moment. As a
constitution-monger, the Abbé Sièyes was, in reality, less erratic. But we
know this—that his lordship in 1852 brought forward a bill for amending
the representation, which bill, owing to certain circumstances which we
need not recapitulate, went to limbo; and that in 1854 he has brought
forward another, bearing in no respect any likeness to the former one.
Indeed the issue of Banquo and of Macbeth could not have been more
dissimilar. No. 3, however, is a great deal more sweeping in its
innovations than No. 2 (for we must recollect that more than twenty years
ago the noble lord carried No. 1); and No. 4 may be still more progressive.
Heaven only knows what we shall have proposed, when the number of his
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