Azure DevOps

1. Understanding Work Items

Work items are the fundamental building blocks of your plan in Azure Boards. They represent individual units of work, such as User Stories, Tasks, Bugs, and Epics. Each work item has a unique ID and a set of fields to capture details about the work.

Common work item types include:

• Epic: A large body of work that can be broken down into a collection of Features.
• Feature: A service or capability that meets the needs of a business. Features are typically implemented across several iterations.
• User Story: A requirement from an end-user perspective, typically expressed as "As a [type of user], I want [some goal] so that [some reason]."
• Task: A specific action or piece of work required to complete a User Story or Bug.
• Bug: A defect in the software that needs to be fixed.

2. Creating Work Items

You can create work items directly from the Boards or Backlogs view. Let's see how to create a User Story:

1. Navigate to your project's Boards section.
2. Select Backlogs from the sub-menu.
3. Ensure you are on the correct Work Item Type (e.g., User Stories).
4. Click the + New Work Item button.
5. Select User Story from the dropdown.
6. Fill in the Title (e.g., "As a registered user, I want to be able to reset my password so that I can regain access to my account.") and other relevant fields like Description, Priority, and Effort.
7. Click Save & Close.

You can also use the quick add feature on the backlog:

3. Organizing Your Backlog

The backlog is where you prioritize and organize your work items. You can reorder items by dragging and dropping them. This hierarchy helps you visualize your plan from Epics down to Tasks.

Parent-Child Links:

• To link a User Story to a Feature, open the User Story, go to the Details tab, and click + Add link. Select Parent and choose the desired Feature.
• Similarly, you can link Tasks to User Stories.

The backlog view can be customized to show different levels of hierarchy using the settings toggles at the top right of the backlog pane.

4. Using Sprints (Iterations)

Sprints (or Iterations) are time-boxed periods during which a specific set of work is completed and made ready for review. Planning your work into sprints is a core agile practice.

1. Navigate to Project Settings (bottom left gear icon).
2. Under Boards, select Project configuration.
3. Go to the Iterations tab.
4. Here you can define your sprints (e.g., Sprint 1, Sprint 2) and set their start and end dates.
5. Back in the Backlog view, you can assign work items to specific sprints using the Iteration Path field.

5. Planning with Boards

The Boards view provides a visual representation of your workflow, often displayed as a Kanban board. This helps you visualize progress, identify bottlenecks, and manage the flow of work.

• Navigate to Boards > Boards.
• Work items are displayed as cards in columns representing stages of your workflow (e.g., New, Active, Resolved, Closed).
• You can customize the columns to match your team's process.
• Drag and drop cards between columns to update the status of a work item.

6. Effort Estimation

Estimating the effort required for each work item is crucial for effective planning and forecasting. Azure Boards supports various estimation units:

• Story Points: A relative measure of the effort required to implement a backlog item.
• Effort: Can be configured to use Story Points or a numerical value.
• Remaining Work: The amount of work (often in hours) left to complete a task.

You can set these values in the work item form and use them in conjunction with sprint capacity planning.