Professional Team Foundation Server

Chapter 13. Managing Your Team Projects

You have installed Team System and set up your first Team Project. How do you properly configure it? The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) has some good guidance, but most people seem to be stuck when trying to figure out where to go next. What is the optimal way of setting up your areas and iterations? What exactly is an iteration? In this chapter, we provide a context around these questions and many more.

NOTE

You should read this chapter before implementing a Team Project. We provide important information here on how to structure it.

Effectively leveraging the artifacts in Team System involves an understanding of the underlying goals of the product. One of the reoccurring themes you will see is the implementation of software engineering principles in your development process. However, it's much more than that—many processes out there provide the rigor, but no agility. Team System is a remarkable suite of tools as it supports the best of both worlds. Sam Guckenheimer in his book Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (ISBN: 0321278720) refers to this amalgamation of agility and mathematical precision as the "Value Up" approach. It makes a great deal of sense because both the Agile and Software Engineering movements seek to scope out how software is developed and drive predictability.

Software project management is a complex set of tasks that involves the balancing act of managing project dependencies and resources. ...