Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

• The iteration cycle should be long enough to allow team members to get substantial
work done, and should cover at least a few different scenarios.
• The iteration cycle should be short enough to flexibly accommodate changes and
priorities.
In practice, a two-week iteration cycle works for most projects.
Additional Resources
• For more information about iteration cycle duration, see “How To – Manage Projects
in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server” in this guide.
• For further information about iteration cycle duration, see “Chapter 11 – Project
Management Explained” in this guide.
Check-in Policies
• Use check-in policies to enforce code quality.
• Use check-in policies to ensure that developers associate work items with checkins.
• Create check-in policies to enforce coding standards.
• Set up notifications to inform you when developers bypass check-in policies.
Use Check-in Policies to Enforce Code Quality
Use a combination of code analysis and testing policies to improve check-in quality for
your project. For example, use the supplied testing policy to ensure that specific tests are
executed and passed prior to allowing source to be checked into Microsoft Visual
Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) source control. You can also configure a
code analysis policy to help ensure that your code meets certain quality standards by
ensuring that security, performance, portability, maintainability, and reliability rules are
passed.
By enforcing this type of check-in policy in addition to policies that enforce coding
standards and guidelines, you ensure that your code meets a specific quality standard.
To enforce a code analysis check-in policy for a team project
1. In Team Explorer, right-click your team project, point to Team Project Settings, and
then click Source Control.
2. Click the Check-in Policy tab, click Add, and then select and configure the
appropriate policy.
Additional Resources
• For more information about creating and using a custom check-in policy, see “How
To – Step Through Creating Custom Check-in Policies for TFS” in this guide.