An important component of a software factory is guidance. After all, a software factory is a highly specialized IDE for product a specific type of software. Without some instructions on the proper use of this highly specialized IDE the developer is pretty much lost, left to bump around in the maze until a sense of direction is established. Good guidance eliminates this disorientation, allowing the software engineer to use the factory productively right away.

An excellent source of information on engineering good guidance can be found at:
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/GuidanceEngineering.HomePage

Hey, I guess this guidance engineering wiki could be called meta-guidance!

J.D. Meier reports on his blog that the Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has just released new prescriptive guidance for Visual Studio Team System. This is a CodePlex project that contains a wealth of guidance on best practices around Team System. It looks like they are focusing on source control first, but I'm sure that additional guidance will be added in the future related to test and build.