Process

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Process is the collection of roles, practices, rules, and guidelines that are used to organize and control the flow of work. The project process is defined in a project area and can be further customized in a team area. In Jazz®, you use process to define user roles and their permissions for performing operations within the tool, such as changing the state of a work item. Each component in Jazz is process aware. In change and configuration management and quality management project areas, you can add rules of process behavior in the form of preconditions and follow-up actions for these operations. Process can also define project reports, queries, and work item types.

Your process varies with the complexity of the project and the size and number of teams assigned to the project. Jazz includes predefined process templates. In change and configuration management, you can customize the predefined templates and you can create new templates. Your team can begin with a simple process and evolve it as the project progresses. If you have customized the process, you can create a process template and make it available to other teams. Process templates can include a description of the specified process.

Jazz supports process in the following ways:
  • Jazz is process-aware. The process is explicitly represented, and all the work that team members do within the system happens within a context of a defined process.
  • Jazz components are process-enabled. Process can be implemented to exert influence over the operations and artifacts for each component.
  • Jazz is process-neutral. Each project team can define an appropriate level of control and guidance.
  • Process is hierarchical. The general project-wide process is defined at the project level. The process can then be modified to meet the needs of team areas within the project area. At each level within the team hierarchy, the parent process can define how much flexibility its child teams have to override or otherwise modify the process for their needs.
  • Process can be shared. A project administrator can make a project area process available to other project areas. By sharing a project area process, you ensure that all project areas across your organization use the same process. You also centralize process maintenance; changes that you make to the process of the sharing project area immediately apply to the project areas and team areas that consume that process.
Frequently, there is no single process that applies to all team members and all phases of a project. You can use process behavior to customize the process in specific team areas, iterations, and iteration types. In the project area process configuration, you can specify:
  • Client-side and server-side project initialization (change and configuration management only)
  • Predefined project reports and queries
  • Work item types, workflows, and enumerations (change and configuration management and quality management)
  • Roles available for a team
  • Team and role-specific permissions for client and server-side operations
  • Team and role-specific preconditions that define the conditions under which client-side and server-side operations can proceed (change and configuration management only)
  • Team and role-specific follow-up actions for client-side and server-side operations (change and configuration management only)