Tool Mentor: Plan Iteration with Rational Team Concert (RTC)
This tool mentor describes how to plan an iteration using Rational Team Concert (RTC) work items.
Tool: Rational Team Concert (RTC)
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Main Description

Prerequisites

Read the following documents:

The following steps are covered in the tool mentor:

  • Create Iteration Plan
  • Prioritize work items
  • Define the iteration objectives
  • Commit work to the iteration

Create Iteration Plan

The RTC process template contains a development-line specification. You can create one or more iteration under each of these phases using the Project Area Editor . Under each iteration, you can create the iteration plan by following the steps described in this document: https://jazz.net/learn/LearnItem.jsp?href=content/docs/iteration-planning/index.html.

Once you have created the iteration plan you can start editing the Overview page by switching the  into edit mode (Edit Mode Icon). We recommend documenting the following information following the Iteration Plan outline.

  • High-level objectives
  • Evaluation Criteria
  • Assessment: this section will be used during iteration assessment.  

Prioritize work items

Note: It is recommended in Task: Plan Iteration that the team and stakeholders should collaborate on performing this step.

  1. List the Open work items by running a Work Item Query. (Find details on defining and running this query in "Plan a project with RTC" tool mentor, under "Determine project size and scope".)
  2. Double-click a work item to bring it up in the Work Item Editor.
  3. Consider what has changed since the last iteration, such as new change requests, shifting priorities of your stakeholders, or new risks that have been identified. Enter a priority for the work item in the Priority field. Note: the levels of priority are defined in the Process Template.
  4. Identify the work items related to activities or tasks documented in the Process which your project is applying (for example OpenUP). Revisit the Process documentation and review the work recommended here for your particular iteration. It might provide you with pointers for which activities or tasks you should perform next and which are missing from the work items list. You can navigate to the Process from within your Jazz environment by opening your Project Area (right-click -> Open) and then clicking on the Process link in the Process Description section.  

Refine project plan

Depending on the results from the previous iteration assessment the Project Manager may need to revise the Project Plan. Find more details about this step in Task: Plan Iteration and about how to manage your project plan in "Plan a Project with Rational Team Concert (RTC)" tool mentor.

Define the iteration objectives

  1. Depending on the revision of the project in the refine project plan step, update the iteration objectives with the team and document them in the associated iteration plan by editing the Overview page using the Iteration Plan Editor. See the detail on how to edit the Iteration Plan Overview page in "Editing Iteration Plan Overview" on https://jazz.net/learn/LearnItem.jsp?href=content/docs/client-tour/index.html

    At this step, you can extract the work item from the iteration objectives by follow the following steps. Extracting the work item from the iteration plan will help you trace between the iteration objectives and their tasks.

    1. Selecting Edit Mode Icon ( Edit Mode Icon) on the top right of the Iteration Plan Editor 
    2. Highlighting on the work or sentences in the Overview page which do you want to extract the work item and Right-clicking
    3. Selecting the New -> Work Item or press Ctrl+J
    4. A new work item will be created. Enter the work items information such as description, priority and estimation.
    5. Clicking on Save icon or Ctrl+S to save the work item
  2. List the Open work items and open work items in the Work Item Editor.
  3. Based on the current plan and the work items priority, assign iterations to each work item by selecting the appropriate iteration under Planned For field. 
  4. If work items are too large and cannot be implemented within one iteration, you may need to split them. There are two ways to accomplish this:
    1. Create sub work items below the large work item. (See details in the following step.)
    2. Replace the large work item with two or more work items.

Commit work to the iteration

  1. Open the Iteration Plan Editor.
  2. Select the Planned Items tab. The work items will be listed and group by the team member. All the work items that have not been assigned to someone so far can be located under Unassigned
  3. Review priority of the work items in the Planned Items page that corresponds to the iteration objectives provided on the overview page. 
  4. If work items are too large or cannot be implement within one iteration, the team may split the work items into sub-work items by doing the following:

    1. Select the task that you want to split and create a new task below by right-clicking the work item and selecting Add Work Item -> Task.
    2. Type Tab to demote the new task to a sub-task.
    3. Enter task name and description in the Work Item Editor
    4. The new task will be shown under the work item.

  5. Open the task by clicking on its number and enter a priority and an effort estimate in the Priority field and the Estimation field. To calculate the overall estimation effort, use Agile Estimation. The effort calculation could be performed using a seperate spreadsheet.
  6. Team members decide on the work items that they want to work on by following these steps:

    1. Open the Iteration Plan Editor.
    2. Select the Planned Items tab on the Iteration Plan Editor
    3. Drag the work item from Unassigned to the name of the team member who will be responsible for this work item.

Review risks

  1. In the Team Artifacts View, list the risk items by running the All Risks query in the Work Items/Shared Queries/Predefined folder.
      
  2. All risks will be listed in Work Items View independent of their status.
  3. Review the risk items and re-prioritize as necessary.
  4. For each risk item, visit the tasks that are related to a risk by clicking on the link under Quick Information filed or clicking on the link under Links tab. Check the status of the tasks and re-prioritize them if necessary.
  5. If the team identifies new risk items, record them by creating new work items and assigning work item type as Risk
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