TFS Project Management with CMMI level 3 and 4

Question

I'm a bit confussed as to the best way to handle our projects in TFS.

We are a CMMI level 3 (working on level 4) compliant organization. As such we are currently using the MSF CMMI process template in TFS, which I'm working on customizing to beter suite the needs of our organization.

With each new release (whether that be a major or point release) we have to follow a standard process that includes multiple qualtiy gates and required documentation (project plan addendums, deployment plans, qualtity gate presentation materials, requirement review documents, etc). My problem is that from what I can see, TFS only requires process to be met with each project not release (we have been trying to use iterations to identify the releases).

The question is, is there a way to have a process indicate the documents required for each release or do I need to start a new TFS project with each release.

As a potential follow on question. If you need to create a new project each for each release, how do you handle source control and work item history.

Answer 1

• You are right that opening a new TFS project for each release is probably overkill.
• Instead, I recommend creating a release plan for each release, and associating each needed document with a Work Item.
• Here are some details on one way to create a release plan, and here is an example template with helpful types built in.
• If you have a bunch of spare time lying around, you can customize Work Item fields to create tasks that fit your documentation requirements.

To manage multiple releases in a single TFS project, I recommend simply creating multiple folders, and adding Work Items associated with each release to each folder.