Project Dashboard (CMMI)

You can use the Project dashboard to track team progress toward completing an iteration. This dashboard displays data that helps you monitor task burndown, burn rate, and the product backlog.

Note

You access dashboards through your team project portal. You can access the Project dashboard only if that portal has been enabled and is provisioned to use Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Also, for the Task Burndown and Burn Rate charts to be available, the team project collection that contains your team project must be provisioned with SQL Server Reporting Services. This report is not available if  Reports does not appear when you open Team Explorer and expand your team project node. For more information, see Dashboards (CMMI) or Access a Team Project Portal and Process Guidance.

In this topic Data That Appears in the Dashboard Required Activities for Tracking Task Burndown and Burn Rate Tracking an Iteration Modify the Task Burndown Report for an Iteration Monitoring Progress

You can use this dashboard to answer the following questions: Is the team likely to finish the iteration on time? Will the team complete the planned work based on the current burn rate? What were the most recent check-ins?

Required Permissions

To view the dashboard, you must be assigned or belong to a group that has been assigned the Read permissions in SharePoint Products for the team project. To modify, copy, or customize a dashboard, you must be assigned or belong to a group that has been assigned the Members permissions in SharePoint Products for the team project. For more information, see Add Users to Team Projects.

To modify a report in this dashboard, you must be a member of the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in the SQL Server Analysis Services database for Team Foundation. You must also have read access to the warehouse database for Team Foundation. For more information, see Grant Access to the Databases of the Data Warehouse for Visual Studio ALM.

To view a work item, you must be a member of the Readers group or your View work items in this node permission must be set to Allow. To create or modify a work item, you must be a member of the Contributors group or your Edit work items in this node permission must be set to Allow. For more information, see Managing Permissions.

Data Displayed in the Dashboard

You can use the Project dashboard to understand how much progress the team is making toward completing tasks. Specifically, this dashboard displays the Web parts that the following illustration shows and that the following table describes.

Note

Burndown and burn rate charts, reports and , do not appear when the server that hosts Analysis Services for the team project is not available.

For more information about how to interpret, update, or customize the charts that appear in the Project dashboard, see the topics that are listed in the following table:

Web part	Data displayed	Related topic
	A visual representation of the cumulative count of all hours that the team spent on all task work items for the past four weeks. The Ideal Trend line calculates a slope or trajectory for when work will be completed based on the amount of work remaining and the end date of the report. The line is drawn from the remaining work on the start date to intersect the x-axis on the end date.	Burndown and Burn Rate Report (CMMI)
	Bar chart that shows the actual and required burn rate of the team. The burn rate shows how quickly the team is actually completing planned work and what the rate must be to complete the currently active tasks on schedule.	Burndown and Burn Rate Report (CMMI)
	Team Web Access list of active requirements.	Product Requirements team query. For more information, see Team Queries (CMMI)
	List of upcoming events. The list is derived from a SharePoint Web part.	Not applicable
	Count of active, resolved, and closed work items. You can open the list of work items by clicking each number. This list is derived from a Team Web Access Web part.	Work Items and Workflow (CMMI)
	List of recent builds and their status. You can view more details about a specific build by clicking it. This list is derived from a Team Web Access Web part. Legend: : Build in Progress : Build Not Started : Build Succeeded : Build Failed : Build Stopped : Build Partially Succeeded	Manage and View Completed Builds
	List of the most recent check-ins. You can view more details about a specific check-in by clicking it. This list is derived from a Team Web Access Web part.	Using the Check In and Pending Changes Windows

Required Activities for Tracking Task Burndown and Burn Rate

For the reports that appear in the Project dashboard to be useful and accurate, the team must perform the following activities:

• Define tasks.

• Specify and update the Completed and Remaining fields for each task as the team works on it.

  Important

  If you subdivide a task into subtasks, specify hours only for the subtasks. These hours are rolled up as summary values for the parent task and the requirement.

• Update the State of each task as it progresses from Active to Closed.

• (optional) Specify the Iteration and Area paths for each work item if you want to filter by those fields.

Tracking an Iteration

By using the Project dashboard, product owners and the team can view the team's progress and determine whether the team is making sufficient progress.

For more information about how to customize the Project Dashboard and the types of questions to ask based on the indicators that appear within the dashboard, see the following sections:

• Modify the Task Burndown Report for an Iteration

• Monitoring Progress

Modify the Task Burndown Report for an Iteration

To track an iteration by using the Project Dashboard, you must modify the parameters for the Task Burndown and Burn Rate reports in Report Manager to reflect the start and end dates for your iteration. By default, the start date is five days before the current date.

To modify the Task Burndown and Burn Rate reports to correspond to a specific iteration

1. In the dashboard navigation panel, click Reports.

2. In Report Manager, click Dashboards, and then click Burndown.

3. Click Properties and then click Parameters.

4. For the StartDateParam parameter, click Override Default, and type the iteration start date in the text box with the format mm/dd/yyyy.

5. For the EndDateParam parameter, click Override Default, and type the iteration end date in the text box with the format mm/dd/yyyy.

6. Click Apply.

7. At the top of Report Manager, click the Dashboards navigation link, and then click Burn Rate.

8. Repeat steps 3 through 6.

9. Return to the Project Dashboard and refresh the browser.

10. Verify that the Task Burndown chart now shows the new start and end dates.

To switch between displaying work hours and number of work items in the Task Burndown or Burn Rate reports

1. In the dashboard navigation panel, click Reports.

2. In Report Manager, click Dashboards, and then click Burndown or Burn Rate.

3. Click Properties, and then click Parameters.

4. In the YAxis list, click one of the following options:

   • Hours of Work displays the cumulative number of work hours for all tasks that are defined for the iteration.

   • Number of Work Items displays the cumulative number of work items, grouped by state, that are defined for the iteration.

5. Click Apply.

To display different trend lines in the Task Burndown report

1. In the dashboard navigation panel, click Reports.

2. In Report Manager, click Dashboards, and then click Burndown.

3. Click Properties, and then click Parameters.

4. In the TrendLineParameter list, click one of the following options:

   • Display Actual displays a band that is based on the actual burndown. The band intersects the x-axis when the iteration is expected to finish.

   • Display Ideal displays a straight line from the remaining work at the start date to the x-axis on the end date.

   • Display Both displays both the actual and ideal trend lines.

   • None does not display a trend line.

5. Click Apply.

6. Return to the Project Dashboard, and refresh the browser.

Monitoring Progress

To monitor team progress, you can review the Task Burndown (hours report for the following types of indicators:

• Has Completed Work stopped increasing in the Task Burndown (hours) report?

  One or more issues might be blocking progress or the team might not be resolving and closing work items that it has completed, fixed, and verified.

• Is the team adding or expanding the scope of work during the iteration?

  Significant increases over time to the amount of Remaining Work may indicate poor estimations or scope creep. That is, either the team did not accurately estimate the work at the start of the iteration or the team added features after the iteration started. When required effort is larger than estimated effort, team members might be underestimating the difficulty, time, or other factors. You should investigate the root causes. For example, you might want to determine how granular the tasks are.

• Do changes in the reports match your expectations?

  Dashboard reports reflect work that the team is tracking. You should expect the reports to change according to the decisions and changes that the team makes about the work. If the team reallocates work to another iteration or decides to add work for an iteration, those one or more reports on the Project dashboard should reflect those decisions.

If the slope of the Remaining Work is progressing near or under the Ideal Trend line, the team is executing well against the iteration plan. However, if the Remaining Work slope is higher than the Ideal Trend line, the team will probably not complete all planned Tasks before the end of the iteration.

See Also

Concepts

Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

Artifacts (CMMI)

Other Resources

Excel Reports (CMMI)

Dashboards (CMMI)