Working with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team System

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Chapter 4

Project Managers

In this chapter:

Organizing the Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Starting a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Managing the Ongoing Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Project managers can go by many names: product manager, program manager, business

manager, stakeholder, analyst, advocate, project lead, team lead, or the lone consultant.

Whatever title is used, the responsibility is the same—to see the project through to its

successful completion. In other words, the project manager needs to ensure that the project

goes live on time, on budget, bug free, and meeting all requirements. It is with the project

manager role that we begin the Team System story.

In Team System, the Project Manager role doesn’t contribute designs, code, or tests. Project

managers remain strictly in the management position and perform such duties as creating

and confi guring a project, managing work items, managing the content on the Project Portal,

and reviewing any generated reports.

Organizing the Team

Before we launch Team System, let’s set up the team. I’m assuming that you have a team, you

know their names, and, most important, you know what roles each member will play on the

team and inside Team System. Remember that a team member can play more than one role.

For example, Sharon could be both an architect and a developer. As project manager, you

need to know all these details before starting a new project—primarily to confi gure security.

Note From a software standpoint, Team System comes in editions specifi c to the various

roles. If you have a team member who plays two roles, such as architect and developer, you’ll

need to install licensed copies of both Microsoft

®

Visual Studio

®

2005 Team Edition for Software

Architects and Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers. Installing a licensed

copy of the Team System Suite is another option.

Even team members who don’t correlate directly to an edition of Team System will still

be able to interact by one of the other client interfaces, such as Microsoft Offi ce Excel®,

Microsoft Offi ce Project, or the browser. Anyone in the company who has the correct

permission levels can add or edit documents to the project portal.