How This Book Is Organized

This book begins by painting a landscape of the dynamic work of software project management, providing some history and theory that helps to put Visual Studio Team System into context. In Chapter 2, we provide you with a“ “Lap around Visual Studio Team System,” in which we review all of the main features of Visual Studio Team System from the viewpoint of a project manager. Chapters 3 through 5 take you on a journey of Visual Studio Team System following the path of a typical project life cycle. Chapter 3 focuses on how project managers can use Visual Studio Team System during a project’s inception, and Chapters 4 and 5 continue this approach through project planning and monitoring. In Chapter 6, we change direction and discuss how to use Visual Studio Team System to improve your organization’s software development practices over time. In Chapter 7, we take a slightly more technical look at how to modify Visual Studio Team System to adapt to changing practices. And finally, two detailed appendices discuss two important topics referenced throughout the book, specifically the Microsoft Solutions Framework and the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model.