DEVELOPMENT SERVER
Rules to Better Work Items ( AKA Project Management )

Software should be developed in Releases. A Release is a detailed list of work items which will be developed over a 2 week period and 192 hours/24 days of resources time:

• Two developers/system architects working full time
• One Project Manager working 2 days per week

The work items are all the tasks required in that release (including all the specs, forms, mock up screens, and the business rules/customer stories related to those tasks.) 

Figure: Create the Ball Park

The term "release" implies the unit of work is delivered at its completion, but delivery can be either public (i.e. to the client) or private (i.e. just to the development/test environment). The more frequently we delivery releases publicly the better the application will be.

What do I need to include in a Release?

Releases contain two main types of work:

1. Work items relating to the particular release (e.g. Create Customers.aspx). We call these Project specific Work Items; and
2. Work relating to all releases (e.g. specifications, management, administration, testing, fixes, software audit etc.). We call these "Required Tasks".

Each type of work makes up (generally) 50% of the total project time, meaning each taking 12 days.

Each project has an agreement on the scope of the project; the project manager will break down this agreement to a task list. The task list and agreement is the baseline for the whole development process.

Whenever you receive an request from client, you must:
• Check if the task is in the scope of the agreement/task list before adding to TFS.
• Add the original requirements from the agreement/task list to task description before assigning to developer.
• Check if you can find the original task from agreement/task list.
  • If yes, work on this task to implement the original requirements.
  • If not, you should send a out of scope note to your project manager with the reason, and give the estimate for this extra work. An alternative is to send this note to your client directly, let them know that the work is out of scope and extra cost is required.
• For those tasks that you are not sure, send them to the project manager with your comments.

Make sure you don’t do any extra work out of the scope. Any extra work should be approved and paid.

Project Specific Work Items

• (e.g. Create Customers.aspx)
• 12 days

Required tasks

• Further specification (including screen and report mock-ups): 2 days
• Unit tests: 1 day
• Testing: 1 day
• Fixes from testing: 2 days
• Software Audit: half day
• Fixes from the Software Audit: half day
• Project Administration: 1 day
• Project Management: 2 days
• Unknowns: 1 day