Is there a way to speed up the builds in visual studio team services (and TFS)

Question

Our team has set up continuous integration using visual studio online. We have tried cranking up our subscription to advanced with a paid build limit that we are nowhere near reaching. However, build times are exceptionally slow.

The builds will sit in a queue for several minutes then take several minutes to run [even when testing adding Nuget packages to source control].

Is there any way to speed up builds in Visual Studio Online? If not what are some good alternatives?

I see acceptance or setting up our own continuous integration server on an Azure VM as a worst-case fallback.

Answer 1

1. Reduce the number of projects. You can do so by re-using the previous results. 

2. Make use of ability MultiConfiguration option.  

3. Enable BuildParallel

4. Build all the output to a single directory by using OutputPath