Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Team Project per Application
This is the most common strategy for creating team projects. This approach is useful for
both large and small applications, as well as multiple releases of applications being
developed in parallel. With this approach, you create one project for each application
under development.
Team Project per Release
This approach is useful for large teams who are working on long-running projects. After
every major release, you create a new project and have a clean start. With this approach
you don’t have to worry about carrying the previous release’s baggage forward, including
work items. Also, this approach provides you with the opportunity either to improve the
process templates or use new ones based on your newly acquired experience and
learning.
Team Project per Team
This approach is useful for large projects that span multiple teams, where central control
and activity monitoring is important. With this approach, you create a project for each
team. This approach closely aligns a team with the workflows defined in TFS work item
types and provides a unit of reporting that spans the entire team.
Process Management
With VSTS, the software development lifecycle has been made an integral part of the
tooling to support software project development efforts. By integrating the lifecycle
processes into VSTS, the process and handoffs for development team interaction are fully
supported by the tooling and can be automated in many areas.
Process Templates
VSTS uses process templates to define the set of instructions and artifacts like process
guidance documents, document templates, default work items etc, for setting up a new
project. A process template is a self-contained set of instructions that provide
development teams with the methodology for a software development initiative. A
process template contains the following elements:
• Process guidance. This is supplied for each template and provides contextual
information, help, and direction for team members who need assistance following or
understanding a particular activity. Process guidance is integrated into the Visual
Studio Help System.
• Document templates. These templates enable team members to create new
documents such as specifications, risks assessment and project plans in a consistent
manner.
• Work items and workflow. Work items have their own set of fields and rules that
determine the workflow of the work item and how team members can assign and
perform work.