Question

We have a project that will be developed in multiple phases over the next 12- 18 months. It’s an agile-esque project in a waterfall environment, it that matters.

My initial thought was to create one team project named ‘Project X’. Under Project X could be multiple solution folders but the main development would be in a folder called Main. Branching would be done as appropriate.

The other solution folders under the Project X team project would be for some of the tools we need to build for this project that are independ of the main app, which is a web app. For example, we needed to build an app for processing data and sending it to a web service but it never interacted or merged in any way with the main web app.

The advantages I see to this approach are a) all the code for the project is kept under a single team project and b) all the work items, bugs, wishlist items, are accessible from all the other projects.

Does this approach make sense? Any ideas to improve this? I haven’t created the team project yet.

Answer 1

I will simply comment on the advantages you listed to help you understand why this approach isn’t ideal.

The advantages I see to this approach
are a) all the code for the project is
kept under a single team project and

Both your tools and your web application are for “This project.” That right there is a key indicator that you should use one Team Project inside of TFS. You gain nothing by having two separate Team Projects. In fact, you may make it more difficult to manage.

Consider if you have a requirement that has work one both a tool and the main application to complete. In your scenario, there would be no way to track work history associated to one requirement because you are using two Team Projects. There are many more reasons, you have to manage permissions in two places, have two sets of mappings etc etc.

I would highly recommend you opt to use one Team Project. You, and your entire team, will thank me later.

b) all the work items, bugs, wishlist
items, are accessible from all the
other projects

If you have two Team Projects, you cannot access WIs etc across the projects. In fact, you will have the exact opposite- you will have to create the WIs in both projects if the work crossed over between the two.

You should have one Team Project. A folder for the tools and a folder for the web application. From there you can take it further having it branched off- a branch for development and a branch for main is a good start. Inside each, have the tools and web application so the versions stay in sync.

Here is a good place to start reading before setting up your project: Microsoft Team Foundation Server Branching Guidance.