[Exercise] Planning Your Work

Scenario

We are in the M2 iteration of the Squawk project and will plan the iteration. Along the way, you will create work items, examine some existing plans and create a iteration plan for the Documentation team.

Setup

If we have completed the prior exercise and everyone has their client running, we should be ready to go.

Script

1. Instructor demo.

The instructor will start with the release plan and identify work for the Core and Documentation teams for completion in milestone M2.

1. In the Team Artifacts view under Squawk > Plans open the Release Plan in iteration Release 1[Main Development Line].

2. In the Planned Items page explain how this parent plan is organized using folders. Review the Overview page.

1. On the Planned Items page focus on the work item labeled Create a broader collection of Squawkers. The plan should be viewed with Group by > Folders and Sort by > User Defined Order.

2. Preview the work item using this icon (
   ). Selecting this icon again will close the preview pane.

3. Satisfying this release item requires work by the core and documentation teams. Create work items for these teams as children of this parent work item as follows:

1. With this work item selected press Ctrl-Enter and create a task below. it. Make it a subtask by pressing the tab key (or the Demote context menu). The Summary is Implement Additional Squawkers. Optionally, add a Description.

2. Repeat and add another subtask with a Summary of Document Additional Squawkers.

4. Save the plan using the Save button in the upper right corner of the plan editor.

5. Open the Core for M2 plan under iteration under Plans > 1.0 M2 and go to the Planned Items page. In the sidebar set the view to Group by… Folders.

6. Drag this plan editor to the right of the Release Plan so they can both be viewed in the editor pane. Double click in the title area of one of the plans so they both show in full screen mode. You can reclaim some space by closing the sidebar by selecting this icon (
   ). The screenshot below demonstrates how the two plan editors should appear.

7. Select the core team work item Implement Additional Squawkers and drag it to the Core for M2 plan in the Top Items folder. Note that the parent item from the Release Plan is there for reference with a pointer that you can hover over to see that it is from the another plan. Also the parent work item is grayed out because it does not belong to the Core for M2 plan. Similarly in the Release Plan the work item assigned to the Core for M2 plan is grayed out.

8. Save the Core for M2 plan (note that this also saves the Release Plan).

9. The work items created by the workshop members in the following steps will reference the parent work item Implement Additonal Squawkers.

10. Here is what you should see when done. You can close the Core for M2 plan.
    
    

11. In the Release Plan find the work item Document Additional Squawkers that was created earlier. Open the work item and update it as follows (alternatively you may choose the drag and drop approach that was used in the above after you create the documentation plan in the next step):

1. Filed Against: Squawkers/Squawkers Documentation

2. Planned for: 1.0 M2

12. Save the work item. This will allow it to show up in the Documentation plan that will be created next.

2. Instructor Creates Documentation plan for M2

1. In the Team Artifacts view, select the Squawk >Plans >1.0 M2 node and from the pop-up menu select the New->Iteration Plan… action.

2. In the New Iteration Plan wizard, enter these values:

1. Name: Doc for M2

2. Project Area: Squawk

3. Team Area: Squawk Team/Documentation

4. Iteration: 1.0 M2

3. Press the Finish button. Open the new plan.

4. In the plan editor on the Overview page, press the start editing link and enter some text. RTC now uses wiki style markup for these pages. Content assist is available to help you identify the markup syntax. Add some bold text by pressing keys Ctrl-space and selecting B Bold (**) then type your text. You can add work item links via the Insert Work Item action in the context menu. Return to view mode using this icon (
   ).

5. Press the edit overview button (
   ) in the Plan editor's toolbar to toggle into and out of edit mode.

6. Look at the Planned Items page and note the documentation work item supporting the release plan is present.

3. Create work items for your squawker.

1. First, pick a squawker to implement (Dog, Cat, Car and Lion are done).

2. Click on the new work item button (
   ) in the toolbar.

3. In the work item editor, fill in these values.

1. Summary: <my squawker> Implementation

2. Type: Enhancement

3. Filed Against: Squawk/Squawkers/ (Animals, Things and People are available)

4. Owned by: <yourself>

5. Priority: Medium

6. Planned For: 1.0 M2

7. Estimate: 1 day
   When you apply focus to this field a small information icon (
   ) appears that provides hints on valid values.
   
   

8. Description: A <my squawker> says “<your text here>”.

9. Go to the Links page. In the Links pane select the Add button. In the drop down list select Set Parent… . In the Select Work Item dialog deselect Show my assignments only and in the Containing id or text field enter implement to find the parent work item Implement Additional Squawkers. Select it and press OK.

4. Save the work item but do not close the editor, or if you do close it, remember the work item number assigned.

5. Click on the new work item button in the toolbar to create your documentation work item.

6. In the work item editor, fill in these values.

1. Summary: <my squawker> Documentation

2. Type: Task

3. Filed Against: Squawk/Squawkers Documentation

4. Owned by: <yourself>

5. Priority: Medium

6. Planned For: 1.0 M2

7. Estimate: 1 day

8. Description: See task <implementation work item number> for what a <my squawker> says.

7. Note how the text “task <other work item number> becomes a link.

8. As you did above assign the parent work item named Document Additional Squawkers on the Links page.

9. Save the work item and note on the Links page of each work item that the relationship noted by the link you added is available.

10. Close the editors.

4. Learn more about plans via a tour of the existing Squawk plans.

1. From the Team Artifacts view, open the Core for M2 plan and take a look (expand the Squawk > Plans tree to find the plans). Note that everyone's squawker implementation work items automatically show up as subtask to the parent items in the documentation and release plan (see Planned Items tab) since they satisfy the plan's criteria.

2. From the Core for M2 menu at the top of the plan, select the Configure Plan… action in the drop down list to see the plan criteria. Press Cancel to close the dialog.

3. Click the My Personal Plan button (
   ) in the Plan editor's toolbar to see the result. Click it again to go back.

4. See that you can show and hide sidebar of the Planned Items page; use hover help to find the right toolbar action.

5. Enable the work item preview feature by selecting button (
   ). A pane will open on the right displaying the currently selected work item. Select another work item from the plan to preview it. The preview is a subset of all the work item information. If you select a work item by number you will open the full work item editor. Close the preview by selecting the preview button again.

6. With the sidebar showing, note the use of the Group by dropdown. Try a couple options. The Categories and Folders choices show well.

7. In the Team Artifacts view, navigate to Core for M1 plan and open it (start with Plans > Main Development Line and go deeper). Note that all the plans can be found in this tree and that the current iteration plans are shown first under plans for ease of access. If you would like easy access to plans of interest drag them to the Favorites section of the project area in Team Artifacts view.

8. Note that the Release Notes and Retrospective pages were added via the menu found under this button
   found near the top of the plan editor. You can add other pages for whatever purpose you wish.

5. The instructor should review the Core for M2 and Documentation for M2 plans. Make sure that all the new work items are children of the parent work items Implement Additonal Squawkerss and Document Additional Squawkers Items. If there are standalone work items this can be cleaned up in the plan using drag and drop.

6. Instructor sends out link to plan via chat (only if you are in a networked group with a chat server configured).

1. If you do not have an open chat, create one.

2. Drag the new plan from the Team Artifacts view to your entry field in the Chat view and press enter. The receiver(s) should be able to click it to open the plan.

Conclusion

In this exercise, you learned about creating work items and iteration plans and how high level plan items in one plan can be linked to detail implementation items in specific team plans. You also learned how work items and plans are related; a work item for a given team and “planned for” target is automatically part of the iteration plan for that target.

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