Triage Workbook (CMMI)

You can use the Triage workbook to rank, prioritize, and assign requirements, change requests, tasks, bugs, and issues whose Triage field is not set to Triaged to be worked on for an iteration. Triage is the process that a team uses to review newly reported or reopened work items, assign a priority and an iteration to them, and assign a team member to address them. Triage is driven by the product owner or scrum master with input from the team.

In this topic Work Items Listed in the Triage Workbook Triaging Work Reordering the List of Work Itemss Filtering the List of Work Items Additional Resources for Modifying Work Items By Using Office Excel

Open the Triage workbook from the Documents folder in Team Explorer:

Required Permissions

To view a team query or open a workbook, you must be assigned or belong to a group that has been assigned Read permissions for the team query folder for the team project. To modify a query, you must be assigned or belong to a group that has been assigned Contribute or Full Control permissions for the team query. For more information, see Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries.

To create or modify bugs by using the query or workbook, you must be a member of the Contributors group or your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions must be set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Work Items Listed in the Triage Workbook

You can use the Triage workbook to manage active the set of proposed work. The Triage worksheet references the Untriaged Work Items team query, which is configured to find all requirements, change requests, tasks, bugs, and issues whose Triage field is not set to Triaged for the team project. The following illustration shows an example of the workbook in Office Excel.

Triaging Work

A team can use the Triage workbook to change the Rank, Priority, and Assigned To values for non-triaged work items.

To triage work items

1. In the Triage workbook, click the Triage worksheet.

2. If you have opened a saved workbook, on the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Refresh.

   This step helps make sure that the list of work items contains the most current information.

3. Review each work item.

4. With input from developers, testers, and product managers, determine the importance of addressing each item to support the goals of the project and the current iteration.

5. Assign a priority and rank to each work item, and specify an iteration to address each work item or to fix each bug.

   This step will allow the development team to schedule work and address work items and bugs in a timely fashion.

   Note

   If the description for a work item is unclear, the descriptions should be clarified. For example, if a bug report is unclear or the true impact of the bug is unknown, the bug report should be clarified. Members of the team should attempt to reproduce the bug so that they have a good understanding of its real impact and reproducibility.

6. For unassigned work items, in the Assigned To list, click the name of the team member to address the item.

7. Review the list, and adjust the priority and rank to support current priorities.

   Note

   Use the editing features in Office Excel to change the values for multiple cells. For more information about how to modify cells in a worksheet, see topics about how to enter and edit data in the Help for Office Excel.

   Update the following fields as needed:

   Field Name	Description
   Priority	A subjective rating of the work item as it relates to the business. You can specify the following values: 1 - Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the item, and it should be addressed as soon as possible. 2 - Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the item, but it does not need to be addressed immediately. 3 - Resolution of the item is optional based on resources, time, and risk.
   Rank	A subjective rating of the item compared to other items. For example, a bug that is assigned a lower number should be fixed before a bug that is assigned a higher number.

8. On the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Publish.

   For more information, see Publish Work Items in Office Excel.

9. Save and close the workbook.

Reordering the List of Work

You can reorder the work items that are listed in the Triage workbook by using the Office Excel feature for sorting rows.

To reorder the work items that are listed in the workbook

1. To reorder the work items, perform one of the following actions:

   • Click the down arrow next to Rank, and then click Sort Smallest to Largest.

   • Click the down arrow next to Priority, and then click Sort Smallest to Largest.

2. (Optional) Save the workbook.

Filtering the List of Work Items to be Triaged

You can filter the work items that appear in the Triage workbook in the following ways by using the Office Excel feature for filtering rows:

• Filter on Rank or Priority to list only those items of a rank or priority that you specify.

• Filter on Assigned To to list only those items that are assigned to a team member that you specify.

• Filter on Iteration to list only those items that are assigned to an iteration that you specify.

  Note

  The Iteration tree hierarchy is defined by your project administrator for the team project. For more information, see Create and Modify Areas and Iterations.

To filter the work items that appear in the workbook

1. Perform one or more of the following steps:

   • Click the down arrow next to Rank or Priority, and then click the check box of each rank or priority to display.

   • Click the down arrow next to Assigned To, and then click the check box of each team member to display.

   • Click the down arrow next to Iteration, and then click the check box of each iteration to display.

2. (Optional) Save the workbook.

Additional Resources for Modifying Bugs By Using Office Excel

For more information about how to modify work items by using Office Excel, see the following topics:

• Connect a Microsoft Office Document to Team Foundation Server

• Create, Open, and Modify Work Items Using Microsoft Excel

• Add or Remove Columns in a Work Item List

• Sort, Filter, or Format a Work Item List

• Publish Work Items in Office Excel

See Also

Concepts

Requirement (CMMI)

Task (CMMI)

Bug (CMMI)

Change Request (CMMI)

Issue (CMMI)

Risk (CMMI)

Other Resources

Workbooks (CMMI)