Work Item Type: Track Build
This work item is used to track status and work associated to a build.
Main description

Best practices for tracking builds:

  • For every milestone, and sometimes every week, the release engineering team opens a new track work item to track the build.
  • All team members subscribe to the work item, including testers, if they are interested in the comments about a build.
  • The release engineering team uses comments to announce successful builds. The comments might include the link to a test server where the build is deployed.
  • The release engineering team also uses comments to announce failing builds. The team creates related defects for failing test cases.
  • Over time, the work item to track the build is filled with links to build results, related defects, and other activities that team members do that are related to the build.
  • In the work item, the release engineering team adds approvals and requires the team leads of all of the components to sign off on the quality of builds.
  • When the iteration is over, the track build item is closed and a new one is opened.

The following table shows the Track Build work item state machine:

Output State

Input State

Abandoned In Progress Done
    Initialize / Plan Iteration (Project Level)  
Abandoned       
In ProgressDone Abandon / Manage Iteration (Project Level)   Declare Green /  Assess Iteration Results (Project Level)
Done Abandon / Assess Iteration Results (Project Level)    

Table 1 - State machine of the Track Build work item