Getting started with planning
Learn about agile and traditional project planning, and the processes, plan types, and tasks that support them.
About this task
Before you work on a plan, define a timeline with iterations, team areas, and work item categories for your project. For more information, see Creating a project area, Creating a team area, and Defining categories that work items can be filed against in the web client.
The following figure shows how categories, team areas, and iteration schedules are related so that work items can be assigned to the correct team and iteration. With this relationship in place, team members can view and manage work items for the current iteration within their plan.
Traditional planning
In traditional planning, instead of developing in iterations as you would in agile process, you track change management in sequential phases. Team members complete each phase of a plan before beginning the next phase. To follow a traditional planning model, use the Formal Project Management process template.
About this task
The following diagram shows the process to get started with traditional planning. Click each box for more information.
Agile planning
Agile development is a software design and development methodology that uses many fixed-duration development lengths, or iterations, throughout the lifecycle of the project.
About this task
The following diagram shows the process to get started with agile planning. Click each box for more information.
Planning using Quick Planner
Use Quick Planner to simplify your project planning and speed your workflow.
About this task
In Quick Planner, you can create work boards and plan boards to track your work and the team's work; quickly create work items and assign attributes by using easy access icons and keyboard shortcuts; and locate work items through searches and filters.
For more information about Quick Planner, see Managing projects with Quick Planner. For a tutorial on how to use Quick Planner, see Managing projects by using Quick Planner.