Managing Risk with Visual Studio Team System

As mentioned earlier, it is tough to talk about project management without discussing how risk is managed. Risk management starts off with risk identification. MSF Agile and MSF for CMMI both allow for this with the Risk work item type. As you might expect, the Risk work item type specified in MSF Agile is quite different than the one in MSF for CMMI; the latter version provides a more comprehensive workflow model and additional fields to manage mitigation plans, contingency plans, risk probability, and estimates. Risk identification starts, however, by simply creating a new risk and providing it with a title and a description.

Creating a Risks Work Item Query

Interestingly, MSF Agile does not include a query that returns all risks. One of the first things you should do in your project is to create a work item query that displays all risks on your project that are not set to closed. Note that if you are working with the MSF for CMMI process template, you will automatically have a risk work item query. To create a work item query that returns all active risks, perform the following steps:

1. In Team Explorer, in the Work Items folder, right-click the Team Queries folder and select Add Query from the shortcut menu. The New Query window will open in Visual Studio.

2. Click the last row of the work item query builder to add a new filter clause.

3. Select Work Item Type from the Field drop-down list and Risk from the Value dropdown list to specify a new clause that will filter out all work items except for risks.

4. Click the last row of the work item query builder to add a new filter clause.

5. Select State from the Field drop-down list, < > from the Operator drop-down list, and Closed from the Value drop-down list to further specify that you want to return only risk work items that are not closed.

6. Add some columns to your query by choosing Team | Column Options. Add the following columns to your query: Assigned To, Severity, Rank, State, Reason, Issue, and Exit Criteria.

7. On the File menu, select Save New Query As and type Risks for the name of the new work item query, placing it in the Team Queries location of your project.

One of the best ways to identify risks is with your team during a risk brainstorming meeting. To better facilitate this, you should enter your risks through Office Excel. In fact, if you created a project workbook as discussed earlier in this chapter, you should add a new tab for Risks, linking a work item list in Office Excel to the new Risks work item query you just created.

During your risk brainstorming meeting, simply open your project workbook and navigate to the Risk tab. One of the greatest benefits of working with Office Excel in this way that it allows you to add a great number of work items very quickly. It also allows you to enter partial information into the spreadsheet, which must be completed before you publish to Visual Studio Team System. This will allow you to quickly identify risks, recording them as you do, without the worry of having to specify all aspects of a risk at the same time. During risk identification, you may also choose to specify a severity (Critical, High, Low, Medium) and a rank (which is similar to scenario rankings), specify which team member is responsible for the risk in the Assigned To field, and flag the risk as an issue (Issues field) or as exit criteria for the iteration (Exit Criteria field).