Process Templates
Use process templates to model your own company's or team's processes to Team Foundation Server. Process templates apply to each of your projects for Team Foundation Server. You can choose to use a different process template when you create each project, or you can choose to use the same process template for all your projects.
What is Process?
Most businesses have some established ways of getting work completed, from loosely organized tasks to highly formalized systems. A process is a collection of activities that yield a result, product, or service. You can think of a process as a series of actions or operations designed to achieve an end. Many organizations have formalized process and process guidance to help them work more efficiently.
Team Foundation Server Process Templates
When you create a new project in Team Foundation Server, by default you can choose between two different process templates, MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for CMMI Process Improvement. Each of the templates is based on a different MSF process with a different philosophical approach to software development. These templates shape how the project is set up. Each of these process templates gives you a different set of default work items, work item queries, product templates, reports, security groups, and guidance when you create a project using that template.
You can customize either of these process templates to better suit your individual business needs. For more information about managing process templates, see Process Template Manager and Customizing Process Templates.
Selecting a Process Template
Although it might seem like a simple choice during the project creation, choosing a process to follow is not as easy picking a process template within Team Foundation Server. The internal structure and processes of your business inform your choice of process and the process template. Many teams employ a collaborative effort to shape and form the application life cycle. Administrators in addition to program managers, project managers, developers, testers and others might be called upon to provide input. Frequently, an administrator is called upon to implement the process choices that are made.