Working With Sprints At Your Visual Studio Online Team Project

Introduction

This article will help you with Visual Studio Online, where you can manage your project by working on Sprints.

Note

Make sure you have created your project on your Visual Studio Online account. Follow my previous articles before getting into this demo.

Links

• Click here to create a free Microsoft account (Outlook/Hotmail).
• Click here to learn, how to create a Visual Studio Online account and create a new team project with TFVC added with inviting the members to work on it.
• Creating a team project with Git.
• Connected IDE Experience in Visual Studio Online.
• Customize your Visual Studio Online Project.

Developer Requirements

1. Microsoft account.
2. Internet Connectivity.
3. Web Browser.
4. Visual Studio Online Account.
5. A project that should be created on your Visual Studio Online.

What are Sprints?

Working in Sprints is a great way to limit the risk and provide explicit, frequent opportunities for the inspection and adaptation on Visual Studio Team Project.

Follow the steps, given below, to work with Sprints on your Visual Studio Online project:

Step 1

From the home page of the team project, click Iteration Dates of Sprint Burndown and set the iteration dates… Add more sprints, if needed.



Step 2

Open the Sprint 1 view and click Capacity. Set the capacity and the days off for each team member. Click the save icon, once you are done.

Note

Frequently, not all people are available full-time for any given Sprint. In the Capacity section, you can specify how many hours each team member can commit to work on the project during the Sprint and if there is any individual or whole-team days off.


Step 3

Switch back to the Backlog items view. Drag one backlog item and drop it on to the Sprint 1. Repeat the operation with a  few of them the ones you expect, your team will deliver during the first Sprint.



Step 4

Go to the Sprint 1 page again. Now, you can break down the backlog items into the tasks your team expects to do in order to finish them. Use the ‘+’ icon, which appears, when you hover next to each backlog item to do so. For each task, you can specify the estimated work it represents (in the Remaining work field).


Step 5

Now, the board for the Sprint is shown. Move some items across the columns and change the remaining work and the team member working on it.

Note

The board for the Sprint is a very useful tool to track and manage the progress during it. It is frequently used during the daily standups to discuss about the next actions to take. It reflects the remaining work at any moment, which can be easily tracked, using the burndown diagram at the top right of the board. You can also change the grouping criteria from backlog items to the team members, in order to quickly see, what each of them is working on.



Step 6

Now, switch back to the Sprint backlog view. Move to the work details at the right.

Note

From the Work section at the right, you can see, in real time whether the team has enough capacity to cope with the work they have committed to do. This way, the team can quickly inspect and adapt in order to avoid potentially harmful situations.



Follow my next articles to track the progress of your Visual Studio Online Team Project.