Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Work Items and Friends
Yesterday, I spent the entire day playing around with many of the new features in Visual Studio 2005 Team System, focusing specifically on the integration of the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development. For the upcoming Canadian Launch Tour, we'll be showing you some of the features of Visual Studio 2005 Team System. Among many of its new features is Team Explorer; a new tool inside Visual Studio 2005 Team System that allows you to view the work items associated with your project. I simply love this feature as a developer. It keeps me informed of my tasks all inside one tool. And if I want a broader view of the project, I can simply conduct a few queries to see how my team is doing. But what if I'm not a developer? What if I'm a project manager or business analyst who doesn't use Visual Studio? No problem! Team Foundation Server (TFS) underpins all projects, providing project-related data to anyone who wishes to view it. By default, this support extends to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Project; applications used frequently to assign work and monitor progress. By supporting a wide range of applications, TFS facilitates a highly collaborative environment where everyone can participate in a project's success using the tool(s) people are most comfortable with.
So, what about those work items? What exactly are they? Well, work items represent the assignment and state of work and they vary based on the methodology being used for a particular project. In MSF for Agile, these work items are broken down into five categories: bug, quality of service requirement, scenario, risk and task. These categories not only provide semantics, but they also help qualify work items for the purpose of reporting. An important aspect of TFS is the fact that is employs SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services under-the-covers. This means team members will be able to obtain informative, flexible and relative reports on the various aspects of a project, including bug tracking, build rates and quality indicators.
Now, if you're not excited by what you've read thus far then wait until you see how work items are integrated with Version Control. In Visual Studio 2005 Team System, source code check-ins can be associated with work items. (Project managers can even establish policy to enforce this as a check-in requirement! Cool, eh?) As a developer conducts a check-in, he/she can close an associated work item(s) in the process. This kind of seamless integration with the developer's toolset is a total blessing for project managers because behind-the-scenes, the status of these work items is automatically synchronized with TFS. With a simple click of a button in Excel, a project manager can retrieve an update of the project and its work items, all without having to go around the office asking the development team for status reports.
For those of you who haven't had a chance to play around with the latest bits, I would strongly encourage you to do so. This stuff rocks and I think everyone will absolutely love what we've built.
If you'd like more information of some of the things I've covered, go check out the Visual Studio 2005 Team System MSDN homepage. Also be sure to check out the VSTS Rocks! Web site. There's a lot of great information posted there including videos! Finally, for the total insider's look into Team System, check out Rob Caron's (fantastic) blog.
