Adopting Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server for Application Lifecycle Management
This topic introduces a tutorial that follows members of a fictitious team as it incrementally adopts Visual Studio as its solution for application lifecycle management (ALM). The tutorial shows how the team starts quickly and then starts to use Visual Studio for additional ALM activities at different points in time.
The Story: Julia, Adam, Annie, and Peter are a team that develops web applications at Fabrikam Fiber, a company that provides cable television and related services. This team has decided to use Team Foundation Server (TFS) to manage the code. Over time, the team also starts to use Visual Studio, Team Web Access, Microsoft Test Manager, Microsoft Feedback Manager, and PowerPoint to manage the backlog, create storyboards, get customer feedback, and review, test, and build the code.
Your team can adopt Visual Studio features for ALM in any sequence, except where one feature depends on another. For example, as the following illustration shows, teams who want to perform exploratory testing and request feedback in Visual Studio must manage their backlogs in TFS.
.png "ALM Incremental Adoption")
Before You Begin
Julia installs TFS and puts the team’s code under version control. She also sets up continuous-integration builds so that the team can identify and fix build issues early.
Backlog Management
Until now, the team managed its backlog in an Excel workbook. Now the team will manage its backlog in TFS. Annie adds the backlog items to the team project. When team members plan the next iteration, they use the backlog page to identify the items for the iteration backlog and to break those items down into tasks.
Exploratory Testing
Adam starts to use Microsoft Test Manager to perform exploratory tests.
My Work and Code Review
The team starts to use the My Work page in Team Explorer to collaborate more effectively. In this instance, Peter suspends his work in progress to fix a bug, gets a code review from Julia, checks that fix in, and then resumes his work in progress.
Develop Code for a Backlog Item, and Fix a Bug
Storyboarding
Annie creates a storyboard to conceptualize and get feedback on a design that she’s developing.
Customer Feedback
Annie uses Microsoft Feedback Manager to solicit and manage feedback from her stakeholders.
Request and Process Stakeholder Feedback
See Also
Concepts
What's New for Application Lifecycle Management in Visual Studio 2012