Which work item types should changesets be associated with?

Question

Our team is working on updating our TFS work process.   We are essentially using the CMMI version 5 process with TFS 2010 (hoping to move up to 2012 soon).  My question has to do with best practice for associating changes with work items.  Which work item/s is it best to associate my changesets with. 

For example, let's say I have a requirement work item R1 and it has a child Requirement work item R1.1, and I have some created two task work items T1 and T2 to implement the requirements.  When checking in code, is it best to

1) Associate changes only with the tasks,

2) Associate changes only with the requirements, or

3) Associate changes with all related work items (both tasks and requirements)?

Clearly, TFS will let me do any of the above.  Is one or another of these methods more correct and/or usefull than another?  Tracibility is also important in our industry-- does one scheme or another help us keep trace our changes to requirements more easily? 

Thanks.

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Programmer and Windows slave

Answer 1

I would only associate a check-in with a Task.

A task should be an atomic logical piece of work that usually will require one check in to implement. Requirements are often broken down into many smaller tasks to complete, so each task will have just one check in, it is easy to trace back a changeset to the task that it is completing. Tasks should be children of the Requirement work item, and as such you can trace the task back to the requirement. If you are tracing the other way, you can do it just as easy with or without changesets linked to requirements.

The other benefit, is that developers only have to concern themselves with tasks, and not requirements, as far what they are working on on a day to day basis.

I cannot see any benefit of having a requirement with as many (or more) linked changesets as there are linked tasks.

Answer 2

The change sets should always be associated with Tasks or Bugs. This gives higher understanding to the team.

If you are concern about tracking them, then best practice is to create User Stories. When new task is created, link task with a user story.

Following link can help you more.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd380634.aspx

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- Prashant http://prashantsblogs.wordpress.com http://prashantsblogs-algos.blogspot.in

Answer 3

Hi,

Since we haven't heard from you for a long time, I temporarily close this case. I mark useful reply as answer. If you have any concerns, please feel free to reopen it or submit a new question. Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,

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Lily Wu
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