Process Guidance

Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development is the process guidance for the current team project. This page introduces key concepts.

Roles

Team members assume one or more roles.

Workstreams and Activities

Roles do activities, which are grouped in workstreams. Activities may produce certain work products and may require work products in certain states before they can be performed.

Work Products

Work products are the documents, spreadsheets, project plans, source code, and other tangible output from the activities.

Visual Studio Team System

Visual Studio Team System provides tools that you can use to enact process guidance.

Users and Groups

Team members log in as users. Users belong to groups, which enforce security privileges, and can be used to implement roles.

Work Item Database and Metric Warehouse

Everything planned or tracked for the team project is managed in a database. Those records are called work items. They can track the state of activities or tasks within them.

Queries and reports let you track your project status health in real time.

Source Control and Project Portal

Team Foundation source control stores some of the work products, such as source code and text. The rest, such as documents, spreadsheets, and project plans are stored on the project portal. Spreadsheets and project plans may be linked to the work item database.