Organizing the Team

Organizing the Team

Before we launch Team System, let's set up the team. I'm assuming that you have a team, you know their names, and, most important, you know what roles each member will play on the team and inside Team System. Remember that a team member can play more than one role. For example, Sharon could be both an architect and a developer. As project manager, you need to know all these details before starting a new project—primarily to configure security.

NOTE
From a software standpoint, Team System comes in editions specific to the various roles. If you have a team member who plays two roles, such as architect and developer, you'll need to install licensed copies of both Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects and Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers. Installing a licensed copy of the Team System Suite is another option.

Even team members who don't correlate directly to an edition of Team System will still be able to interact by one of the other client interfaces, such as Microsoft Office Excel®, Microsoft Office Project, or the browser. Anyone in the company who has the correct permission levels can add or edit documents to the project portal.

NOTE
Team System doesn't provide any Web-based work item support. Only collateral documents uploaded to the portal can be viewed and edited. This might change in future versions. Until then, it certainly is a great opportunity for integration. See Chapter 9 for more information on customizing and extending Team System.

To prepare for the new project, you should know the following information about each Team System member:

• Name

• Windows domain and user ID

• Role that the person will play in Team System (project manager, network infrastructure architect, solutions architect, developer, tester, or observer)

• Which edition of Team System the person has installed (because this will affect what he or she can and cannot physically accomplish)

TIP
I know of several one-man-shop consultants who plan to use Team System. They will most likely decide to install and use Team System Suite. Installing Team Foundation Server might be a way to gain access to the Team Foundation Version Control and Team Build utilities. However, they will still be underutilizing Team System because they won't really be using the collaboration features.