In this lesson, you will define the project iterations, and add
tasks and other elements to the iterations. The elements that you add will
provide a breakdown of project activities, and also define the significant
points that indicate progress in the iterations and the project.
This
task is performed in the WBS Overview viewlet. Navigate to or add the WBS
Overview viewlet to your view.
Show me
In Lesson 1, you created an empty project. Now,
you will define specific activities that must be performed during the course
of your project. A basic project activity is a task that has specific start
and finish criteria, and dates or duration (For example, a test plan with
a duration of two days). A milestone marks the end of a project phase or the
achievement of a significant phase. An iteration is a time-boxed phase of
the project to cover a set of development activities; each project has several
iterations.
To create iterations, tasks, and milestones:
- Begin by adding a task to the project. On the WBS tree,
right-click the "Develop Work Management module" project, and select .
- In the new task row, type the task as Create
vision and scope document.
- Now we must add another task named Create test plan.
Follow steps 1 and 2 to
add this task to the project.
- After you have added the two tasks in the previous steps,
add a milestone. On the WBS tree, right-click the project, and select .
- Name the milestone Preparation complete
- Next, add an iteration to the project. Right-click the project,
and select . Name this iteration Iteration 1: Infrastructure
and project creation framework
- Add tasks to the iteration. On the WBS tree, right-click the iteration,
and select .
- Type the task name as Set up infrastructure.
- Add another task for the iteration, and name it Develop
project creation framework.
- Add the final task for the iteration and name it Run
unit tests.
- Add a milestone for the iteration, and name it Iteration
1 build delivered.
- Follow steps 6 to 11 to create another iteration and tasks
for the iteration. Refer to the Table 1 table
for a description of the elements. You should have a project structure
as shown in the table.
Table 1. Project activitiesElement type |
Name |
Task |
Create vision and scope document |
Task |
Create test plan |
Milestone |
Preparation complete |
Iteration |
Iteration 1: Infrastructure and project creation framework |
Task |
Set up infrastructure |
Task |
Develop project creation framework |
Task |
Run unit tests |
Milestone |
Iteration 1 build delivered |
Iteration |
Iteration 2: Project scheduling service |
Task |
Develop scheduling algorithm |
Task |
Implement scheduling algorithm |
Task |
Run unit tests for scheduling algorithm |
Task |
Integrate project creation and scheduling |
Task |
Run unit tests for integration |
Task |
System test for project creation and scheduling |
Milestone |
Final module build delivered |
- Click Save.
Notice the start and end dates and duration for each of the elements
that you added. The start and end dates correspond to the project start and
end date, and the duration of each element is one day. In its current state,
the project and all of its activities are set to complete in one day. That
is because we have neither performed any scheduling for the project elements,
nor have we created dependencies between the project activities that stagger
tasks to take place one after the other in a defined order. We will tackle
these issues in the next lessons.