We have just started using TFS (Team Foundation Server) 2017. The team project we created uses the Scrum template. There are only Epics, Features and PBIs (Product Backlog Items) in this template. How to create requirements? We don't want to use a CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) template.
So, the question is: how are requirements created/managed/manifested in the Scrum template?
I'm not intimately familiar with TFS, but in Scrum terminology, a requirement is one thing that may be a Product Backlog Item.
Consider the following from the Scrum Guide:
The Product Backlog lists all features, functions, requirements, enhancements, and fixes that constitute the changes to be made to the product in future releases. Product Backlog items have the attributes of a description, order, estimate and value.
If the Product Backlog contains only Product Backlog Items, then a requirement is one type of Product Backlog Item. A bug report would be another. A refactoring task could be another. Technical debt paydown would be yet another.
"Epics" and "Features" aren't a part of Scrum, as defined in the Scrum Guide. An Epic (and sometimes a Theme) are ways to group User Stories. The Scrum Guide doesn't require User Stories (it's mostly silent on how to format Product Backlog Items), but many teams have found success with them. If a Product Backlog Item is a User Story, it may be part of a larger Theme or Epic that describes a particular flow through the system. However, a Theme or Epic may not be something that is reasonably deliverable within an iteration.
In your case, requirements would be captured as Product Backlog Items. You may or may not want to group Product Backlog Items into Features or Epics - it depends specifically on the way you and your team decide to work.
how are requirements created/managed/manifested in the Scrum template? - This answer addresses that in the last paragraph. In Scrum, everything is captured as Product Backlog Items (which exists in the template). Epics are often used with User Stories as a way to group them. Features are another way of organizing Product Backlog Items, but not as part of Scrum itself. If you aren't using Scrum, you shouldn't use the Scrum template since it's designed for a process that is closer to Scrum.
There are no requirements, in the traditional project management sense, in the Scrum framework.
With that TFS Scrum template the big ideas, or groups of possible features, are usually recorded in Epics. Those will be broken down into more specific Features of functionality. The Scrum Team will break those down even further into PBIs, well defined slices of functionality that have been refined to a level of shared understanding so they can be implemented.
The idea of user stories can play a role in using these objects.
In the Scrum process in VSTS/TFS a "Requirement" would be represented as a "Product Backlog Item".
General wisdom in the TFS/VSTS world asserts that:
You can also add to that Themes, or cross-cutting concerns, that would be best suited to Tags in TFS/VSTS.
This is the Process in VSTS/TFS whos terminology most relates to Scrum and Agile. It uses the terms "Product Backlog Item", "Feature", and "Epic" for execution flow Work Items, and has a State Model of "New" -> "Approved" -> "Committed" -> "Done".
You do not need to be following the Scrum Framework to use the Scrum Process. In general, if you are following some flavour of Agile then this is the best choice in Process. Since you did not mention that you were following the Scrum Framework I did not make that assumption in the answer.
Terminology
