Stldodn 2014 TFS Care and Feeding

General overview of Team Foundation Server 2008. Includes links to additional resources in the appendix, including contact information.

Automating business processes with SharePoint is a powerful way to increase efficiency within any organization. With SharePoint Designer 2010, no-code (or declarative) workflows can be built to run either SharePoint 2010 On-Premise or in the cloud with Office 365. In this session, we’ll develop an expense report workflow from beginning to end to show how SharePoint Designer Workflows are being used in business today.

The document summarizes the Tequila Framework 3.2.1 presentation given by Siwawong W. It introduces the speaker and their background, describes key features of the Tequila Framework like its MVC structure and use of design patterns, and demonstrates how to get started using the framework.

Speakers: Ognyan Guglev & Radi Atanassov In this session we will share how we maintain our environments for development, quality assurance and demonstration purposes. We've put in a lot of thought into optimising what we do and to deliver a highly-available, performing experience to our delivery teams. For our work we have over 90 farms, so the challenges in maintaining them are not insignificant. Due to advances in the SharePoint platform we believe it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain SharePoint environments for every project, client or product. We have a strong requirement to be flexible and efficient on hardware and at the same time be able to spawn development environments on demand. Automation here with SCVMM is key to a sustainable work front. We will discuss our goals as a consultancy company, how we deal with licenses, whether we prefer centralised or decentralised team environments, how to automate VM's with Service Center Virtual Machine Manager, how to deal with Microsoft SQL and Active Directory, DNS and IP addresses, what we do to make the developer's time as productive as possible and a whole set of other tips and tricks we put in place. We will also share our Apps development and Office 365 development landscapes. Overall, this session is infrastructure focused, but will be valuable and practical both for administrators and developers, it will cover experiences for both sides of the spectrum.

The document discusses the benefits of automating various IT projects and processes using automation tools. It describes how automation can speed up middleware upgrades, migrations between platforms to reduce costs, building private clouds, upgrading core applications, and platform migrations. It then introduces the Folder Management plugin for RapidDeploy which allows centrally managing folder structures and file configurations across target servers to reduce errors and improve consistency. The plugin enables snapshotting folder structures, comparing files over time, templating files, and deploying filesystem changes.

The document provides important deadlines and contact information for speakers at a Microsoft conference. Key dates include June 30 to submit speaker registration forms, July 16 to submit presentation materials, and September 9 for final PowerPoint slides. The document also provides guidance on publishing slides online and using licensed content.

Following from PowerBreakfast #004 presented by Steven Murawaski on Desired State Configuration (DSC) that is available here. Are you still not convince that you should be looking at DSC right NOW or do you think it is worth waiting for something new or even looking at staying at where you are and how things are working now? In this session, I will generally focus on the Operational side of things which focus on the response that I have received from speaking to various folks at work. On top of that, I will also share on how things may have changed for a group of Developers and/or System Engineers which we have integrate DSC into your daily life.

Global Intranets, Extranets, and Internet sites in advanced farm deployments. Lessons learned and guidance is shared in this deck... Caching, Firewall, Security, Optimization, etc... Presented with Joel Oleson, Shane Young, and Mike Watson at Tech Ed 2008

SCRUM has grown in popularity and acceptance by many companies over the world with numbers of registered SCRUM Masters reaching 51,955 (11 March 2009 - Jeff Sutherland). Although SCRUM does not stipulate what tools to use to produce the necessary artifacts, Microsoft Team Foundation System provides a number of features via TFS Explorer that facilitate capturing the artifacts of SCRUM and is a useful tool for any SCRUM Master, Team and Product Owner. This presentation will highlight the SCRUM framework and show you practical use of TFS and other tools that facilitate the ceremonies and artifacts of SCRUM.

Are you using an outdated Legacy ECM repository? Learn how to center your business around SharePoint for a LOW COST effective option by migrating content from legacy ECM to a centralized SharePoint infrastructure. KnowledgeLake's Migration solution provides planning and analysis that address business as well as technical issues, including the costs associated with migration.

If you're thinking about migrating from TFS on-premises to VSTS, it's not necessarily a simple decision as to how to get there. During this briefing we discussed some of the considerations that lead you to the right migration path, gotchas that we have encountered, and how we can help you get to VSTS quickly and effectively.

This document provides guidance on how to manage SharePoint without a dedicated SharePoint team. It recommends leveraging existing IT staff for server, database, and hardware management. Governance and training are important to prevent excessive content growth. Vendor support can assist with administration, custom development, and staff augmentation. Options for customizing include online themes, pre-made themes, and apps. Migrating to SharePoint Online simplifies management but limits control and customization. Acrowire's managed services offer dedicated SharePoint experts and support.

This document summarizes a presentation on SharePoint administration best practices and tips from the field. It introduces the two presenters, Wahid and Nedra, and their backgrounds in SharePoint. The abstract indicates that the presentation will cover best practices for SharePoint infrastructure, site architecture, permissions management, and ongoing maintenance. Specific topics that will be discussed include training, information lifecycle management, backups, SQL settings, Windows services, file system objects, permissions, monitoring, search, automation, and a PowerShell demo. The presentation concludes by inviting attendees to provide feedback on a QR code or website.

AvePoint Presents, Understanding Office 365 Groups: Ask The Experts More blogs, webinars, and videos about Office 365 Groups for you: https://www.avepoint.com/office-365-groups/ Presented by: - Christophe Fiessinger, Microsoft Office 365 Groups Program Manager - Dux Raymond Sy, Microsoft MVP & AvePoint Public Sector CTO - Jeremy Thake, Hyperfish VP of Product Technology Office 365 Groups are shared workspaces where group members can collectively get things done. But how exactly does it work, and how will Office Groups enhance the way you work? Join our experts for an interactive, question-and-answer session covering: An overview of what Office 365 Groups are, how they work, and what you get when you set one up Use cases and customer stories showcasing how you can use Office 365 Groups to power your teams and projects Prescriptive advice on how your IT and governance teams can manage Office 365 in the era of Office 365 Groups By the end of our webinar, you will understand what Office 365 Groups are and the impact that activating them can have on your organization.

1. The document summarizes a job posting for a Senior Systems Engineer position located in Maastricht, Netherlands. The position is available immediately and initially for 1 year. 2. Key responsibilities include managing the network and server infrastructure, performing operational management and monitoring, implementing small changes, trend analysis, and supporting IT projects. 3. Required qualifications include experience with Microsoft technologies like Windows server, SQL server, and .NET as well as virtualization platforms Citrix and knowledge of ITIL processes.

The document outlines the four phases of migrating to Team Foundation Server 2010: research and planning, setup, migration, and post-migration. It discusses important considerations and steps for each phase such as determining hardware and team project collection strategies, upgrading process templates and work items, configuring the TFS application tier and build servers, and reviewing permissions after migration. Resources for additional information and help are also provided.

A typical developer day involves: 1) Using the new Team Explorer in Visual Studio to plan and activate tasks, manage interruptions, and conduct code reviews. 2) Branching code to organize different work lines and avoid merge conflicts. 3) Leveraging features like IntelliTrace to debug production environments and facilitate preemptive integration with bug tracking in Team Foundation Server. 4) Extending Visual Studio through plugins to automate tasks.

Having a metrics mindset, choosing metrics for the right reasons, knowing how and when to use them, and some ideas for getting started

Feedback helps us to build stronger teams, supports more effective problem-solving and collaboration, and ultimately contributes to happier people delivering better products. Without effective feedback, we can spend time focusing on the wrong things, solving the wrong problems, maybe not even knowing about problems in the first place! In my experience, people are generally not confident in their feedback skills. This makes feedback feel risky, vulnerable, scary, even downright anxiety-inducing and so then they give no feedback at all. Feedback Doesn't Have to Suck. In this fast-paced 20 minute session focused on supercharging your feedback skills, I will help you get a good foothold on where to start. We’ll warm up with an overview of what feedback is, attributes of high-quality feedback, and some “tips and tricks” to getting comfortable with giving and receiving candid feedback that has worked really well for me both as a manager and a team member. You’ll be a feedback champion before you know it!

How many times have you been asked to deliver on metrics that did not make sense to you, that felt counterproductive to your or the team's effectiveness, or that were seemingly impossible to collect in a sane fashion? Oftentimes, I find that metrics being collected are ones that are easy to collect and report on but are not necessarily the ones that will help the team learn and improve. When it comes to software delivery, lean and agile practices and methodologies have taken the lead. Metrics have lagged a bit and often rely on very waterfall-style milestones and phase-gates to determine a team's effectiveness. In the spirit of continuous improvement, this session will take a look at the measures we can and should collect from agile teams, why these metrics are relevant and interesting, and how we can use them to help our teams continuously improve.

This document discusses increasing adaptability through developing three skills: change awareness, cognitive flexibility, and focused attention. It defines adaptability quotient (AQ) as the capacity to adapt to and thrive in changing environments. The document provides strategies for strengthening each skill, such as asking probing questions to improve change awareness, thinking differently to boost cognitive flexibility, and focusing on new situations to enhance attention. It encourages scanning the environment for unknowns, loosening constraints, and returning to zero to view things differently. The document was written by Sara Caldwell and Angela Dugan of 3Cloud Solutions and promotes their consulting services and resources including an AQ assessment test.

The document discusses agile metrics used by Angela Dugan and Sara Caldwell of 3Cloud Solutions to measure team and product health. It introduces common metrics like work in progress, business value, and team health checks. It also cautions that metrics can be misused and should be viewed with care, using principles like considering multiple metrics, involving the team, and having surrounding conversations. The document aims to help readers understand how to properly use and interpret agile metrics.

Measuring the right things for the right reasons to support team experimentation, learning, and improvement

Feedback helps us to build stronger teams, supports more effective problem-solve and collaboration, and ultimately contributes to delivering better products. Without it, we can spend time focusing on the wrong things, solving the wrong problems, maybe not even knowing about problems in the first place! So if feedback is critical to us growing and thriving, why aren't we all excitedly showering each other with feedback all the time, and BEGGING others to give it to us? In my experience, people are generally not enthusiastic or confident in their ability to give feedback. Feedback usually isn't happening because feedback feels risky, vulnerable, scary, even downright anxiety-inducing. As a manager, leader, and coach of many teams over the last 20+ years, I can help you get a good foothold on where to start. Even better, I can tell you where the bodies are buried so you avoid some of the mistakes I've experienced over the years too. In this session, we'll warm up with an overview of what feedback is and is not. We'll also review the qualities of high-quality feedback, as well as the other kinds of feedback so you know the difference. We'll finish off with a quick summary of some "tips and tricks" to getting comfortable with giving and receiving candid feedback that has worked really well for me. You'll be a feedback champion before you know it!

Are you still relying on the old standbys like percent complete, velocity, and burndown for monitoring the progress of your teams or projects? Those metrics may not be telling you what you think they are! In this fast-paced discussion, we'll talk about some of the pitfalls of commonly used metrics, and make the case for not so commonly used measures that give you the insights that you're really striving for. You will learn: Understand the connection between what you measure, your team performance, and product quality Explanation of how many commonly used metrics will fail to tell you what you really need to know Familiarity with uncommonly used metrics that will more reliably tell you how well your project or team are really doing

Feedback makes the world go around, and let’s be honest, many of us feel pretty unskilled at feedback - both at giving and receiving. As technologists, we thrive on experimenting, learning, and adjusting, which we cannot do without the input and perspectives of others around us. So if feedback is critical to us growing and thriving, if feedback is truly a “gift”, what’s the deal? Why isn’t everyone wholeheartedly and excitedly showering each other with feedback all the time? In my experience, feedback isn’t happening because feedback feels risky, vulnerable, scary, even downright anxiety-inducing. Feedback is also something we’re not trained to do well if at all. Bad practices like the “feedback sh*t sandwich” is still common practice. It may even feel like a personal and professional bear trap! In this session, we’ll warm up with an overview of what feedback is and is not. We’ll also review the qualities of high-quality feedback, as well as the other kinds of feedback so you know the difference.

This document discusses increasing adaptability. It begins by introducing the concepts of intellectual quotient, emotional quotient, and adaptability quotient. It then provides tips for improving adaptability, such as communicating with one's environment, considering new ideas, and focusing on new situations while letting go of old ones. Steps are outlined for becoming more adaptative, like popping one's bubble, unlearning and relearning, cognitively flexing, and reflecting on and recognizing change. The document encourages reaching out to the sponsors for help experiencing change and provides references.

The document discusses the importance of open communication, vulnerability, and feedback for effective teamwork. It notes that communicating openly and honestly, and speaking from a place of vulnerability are both very difficult but necessary to avoid struggles. It emphasizes practicing radical candor when giving feedback to others.

In the 20 or so years since I joined the tech community, I moved from an attitude of "please leave me alone in my cube to code and whatever you do don't talk to me!" to well, giving talks on the importance of communication in the software world. The tools and techniques I've come to know and love have changed over time, but a few things have remained constant. 1) Communicating openly and honestly at all times is HARD 2) Speaking from a place of vulnerability is RIDICULOUSLY HARD 3) Without 1 and 2 you're going to really struggle to be an effective and happy member of ANY software team OK, there's a 4th thing. 4) The days of working alone in your cube like a hermit are largely over for software folks. It really doesn't have to suck. I swear it doesn’t. During my brief time with you, I’m going to rumble with some touch topics and share some of my own embarrassing and enlightening stumbles. It will include things like delivering “bad news” to your client/manager/team and feeling good about it, managing conflict with others in healthy and productive ways, and delivering feedback without feeling like you (or the receiver) will vomit. These things are all very possible, and not that hard to master once you have some key tools and insights in your tool belt.

How many times have you been asked to deliver on metrics that did not make sense, that were counterproductive to the team’s effectiveness, or the organization’s effectiveness? Did those metrics seem impossible to collect? Often times, the metrics being collected are the ones that are easy, and focused on individual “productivity”. How do we collect data that drives continuous improvement and promotes an open and trust-filled environment. How does that change at scale? When it comes to software delivery, lean and agile practices have clearly taken the lead. This session will take a look at the measures we can and should collect across teams and organizations. We’ll dig into metrics that are relevant, interesting, AND useful, and discuss some of the common traps.

How many times have you been asked to deliver on metrics that did not make sense, that were counterproductive to the team's effectiveness, or that were seemingly impossible to collect? Often times, the metrics being collected are the ones that are easy, but not necessarily the ones that matter. When it comes to software delivery, lean and agile practices and methodologies have clearly taken the lead. In the spirit of Kaizen, this session will take a look at the measures you can and should collect from agile teams, why these metrics are relevant and interesting, and how you can use them to help your teams continuously improve.

Building the “perfect team” seems like an impossible task these days. Can a truly “cross-functional” team even be built? How do you get introverts and extroverts (yes, they DO exist in IT) to play nice? Seems like these days you practically need a degree in psychology to get this right. But you don’t. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with my clients and my company to develop high functioning teams. I’ve found that regardless of focus (software development, marketing, sales), there are patterns to what makes teams successful, and what can hold them back from greatness. In this talk, I’ll cover a couple of tools for understanding the needs and strengths of your individual team members, identifying strength gaps, and action items for creating a happy and well-balanced team that can get it done!

How to recognize when your team is stuck, and how to blast through common challenges to being an effective team

Whether you've been working on an agile team for 6 months, or 6 years, the same obstacles tend to arise to trip us up over and over. Maybe your retrospectives feel more like a death march and no one is participating any more, or your daily stand-ups have bloated into 25 team member status meetings, or you have a QA team that feels buried by your fast-paced development team. These situations are unfortunately very common, and they lower team morale, lead to abandoned transformation initiatives, and ultimately your product and customers suffer because of it. But there's a better way! As an agile coach and consultant, I help software organizations stop the bleeding, mature their process, and develop into high functioning agile teams. And to be clear, I've made mistakes as well! I'd like to share with the audience my own experiences, including strategies that succeeded and failed in hopes of leading them down the path to getting their own teams "unstuck". I'll also give attendees an opportunity to share their own challenges, so that we can leverage those strategies to give them ideas for blasting through their own roadblocks. Learning points: Recognizing when your process, product, or people have gone off the rails by identifying "smells" Review some tools and strategies that teams can leverage when they need a cognitive reset to get them back on track How to apply tools and strategies in your own unique environments.

The document discusses metrics for software development teams. It notes that while measurement can improve performance, metrics may become targets and lose value. Common metrics like velocity and burndown can be gamed and are lagging indicators. Better metrics focus on work in progress, lead time, cycle time and flow. The author advocates measuring many things to understand impacts and causes of change.

Whether you've been working on an agile team for 6 months, or 6 years, the same obstacles tend to arise to trip us up over and over. Maybe your retrospectives feel more like a funeral and no one is participating anymore, your daily stand-ups have bloated into 25 team member status meetings, or your QA team is falling farther and farther behind the agile developers and feel like they’ll never catch up with their testing backlog. These are the kinds of issues I see all of the time. They lower team morale, lead to abandoned transformation initiatives, and ultimately your product and customers suffer because of it. But there’s a better way! As an agile coach and consultant, I have worked with dozens of teams to stop the bleeding, strengthen their relationships, mature their processes, and help them grow into high functioning agile machines. And to be clear, I’ve made mistakes as well! I’d like to share with the audience my own experiences and lessons-learned, including both what succeeded and what failed in hopes to lead you down the path to getting your own team “unstuck”.