From a project management perspective, what are the recommended methods for integrating with programs?

For the sake of these questions, the term "program" is being used in the project management sense, and is defined as: a collection of related projects.

Specifically what we are looking for is a way to relate different Team Projects or Work Items together so that they can easily be reported on. For example, there may be 3 applications in TFS, Team Project A, Team Project B and Team Project C, that are each set up as individual Team Projects in the same Team Project Collection. There may be cases where:
1. Team Project A and Team Project B are both related to a larger program, and we would like to report on them together. And,
2. Team Project A, and a selection of work items from Team Project C, both relate to a larger program and we would like to report on them together. And finally,
3. A selection of work items from Team Project B and a selection of work items from Team Project C relate to a program, and we would like to report on them together.

How should we mark projects to indicate that they belong to a program?
How should we mark work items to indicate that they belong to a program?
Are there fields available for this?

Apologies, Chris! I missed this question until now.

In TFS 2010, each Team Project should contain an entire product. The value of TFS is to help the team build the product by working collaboratively and with visibility to each other’s parts of the products which are divided by area paths. If a Program Management Office needs visibility across Team Projects, they are able to write queries which can be viewed in Team Explorer to track things like cross project dependencies. Reports can be created to view cross Team Project progress. Splitting a product into different Team Projects has limitations as the product team is unable to export/import work item with tools like Excel and MS Project client integration as they have a single team project limitation. If building cross Team Project schedules is required, the team can use MS Projects master plan capabilities to roll up multiple TFS bound project plans.

To further support visibility to the PMO, TFS is in the process of build integration Project Server 2007 and 2010. You can learn more about this feature by downloading the CTP found here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=196413. Please give the team your comment on this forum site found here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...sprojectsrvint

Hope that helps,
Brian Keller