I took an actual, honest-to-goodness, “no working when people aren’t paying attention: vacation for the holidays so it’s been a quiet few weeks for me. Last time I posted, I described how creating a “one version of the truth” repository for visualizing, prioritizing, managing all of my commitments was a great start to flattening out my over-commitment-then-working-crazy-hours-to-not-under-deliver roller coaster.

So once everything was in one place, my task from my coach George was to identify all of the roles I fill, both at work and at home, and create buckets for chunking up all of my To Dos. For one, I get visually overwhelmed easily, it’s a thing I recognize about myself, so it’s always more effective for me to take in small chunks of data and parse it out if I can. It also gives me another easy “filter”. So I spent some time thinking about my day, and while I sometimes felt like I filled like 20 different roles, it broke down to just 6 major themes when it came down to prioritizing what I focused on during my work day. Luckily Nozbe allows you to create “projects” for lumping things into buckets, so I started there:

The reason this was super important for me, was that like most folks, I cannot be really effective unless I am allowed to focus. So say I have a couple of hours of unstructured time in my day, I could turn on Slack and open my Outlook Inbox and start reacting (I’ve done this, it’s not recommended), or I could decide that working on marketing focused tasks is a good idea. Combing through dozens (or hundreds!) of jumbled To Dos stresses me out, and I tend to pick what’s easy instead of what’s most important or the most effective given my mental state. For instance, if my free time is during a time of day I don’t feel particularly able to be “on” I might not pick tasks that require me to be super attentive or to think quickly on my feet. But if I’m juiced up and feeling particular inspired, I might take on sales or networking related activities. I owe a lot of this thinking to Nancy Gaines.  She is a big advocate of figuring out when your “power hours” are, batching similar activities, and managing your calendar appropriately around that.  Batching similar activities is much easier when they’re already categorized.

Of course within those categories, it’s still important to refine the lists on a regular basis. Rank them by importance, flag things that can be delegated, delete things that are no longer important (THIS IS HARD!), and when hard due dates exist, make sure they are visible. Refinement leads me to Step 3, which is developing a cadence for iterating on those lists, committing to things, and knocking it all out.  Or as George likes to say, CRUSH IT!

Stay tunes for more on cadence and planning.  

Remember that time I admitted that I had lost control of my backlogs? 

Admitting you have a problem is always the first step to getting back on the right path. It’s been a few weeks since I hit rock bottom on the commitment roller coaster. I have been making some great progress, which included a weekly “accountability” session (sprint reviews anyone?) with my coach, delegating things that will stagnate on my backlog (lowering WIP), and devoting some regular time to planning out and refining my weekly commitments (sprint planning and backlog refinement!).  It’ was all so obvious in hindsight, it almost hurt.

If you recall from my last post, my 3 major To-Dos were:

1. Identify all of the roles I fulfill on a daily basis, both at Polaris and in my personal life.
2. Start categorizing the things on my backlogs under my identified roles and prioritize them.
3. Invest in a planning cadence to cut through the noise and focus on what is important

Turned out there were a couple of important steps that I had failed to mention. In this blog post I’ll focus on my ramp-up to my 3 step strategy. I’ve already added backlog items to write separate posts on those 3 steps, and how I tackled them. There’s a chance I may change those 3 steps by then, but that’s the beautiful thing about continuous improvement

First thing I did was make sure that all of my accountabilities were visible in a single place. As much as I love OneNote, VSTS, Pipedrive, Nozbe, and my little yellow notebook, having pieces of all of my stuff live in multiple places at the same time was NOT working, no matter how well I color coded and organized everything. After some trial and error I landed on Nozbe as my one version of the truth. Things still live in those other places too, my Nozbe list isn’t something I want to expose to all of the people I collaborate with as it contains all of my personal backlog items too (ex: my boss doesn’t care about when I take all those bags of clothing to the donation shop). But for my own benefit, anything I am ultimately responsible for delivering on ends up in Nozbe no matter what. If it isn’t in Nozbe, it doesn’t exist, and it probably won’t get done.  FULL STOP.

OK, so I did make an exception with Outlook, I try to immediately deal with stuff there if I can. Something from Outlook only goes into my Nozbe backlog if it needs more thought or follow-up than a quick email response, and you can forward emails to Nozbe to add them to your list – HURRAY! It means a little duplication of effort when things need to be copied to Nozbe, but that has proven to be far less overhead than checking all of those places every day and mentally stack ranking things across multiple backlogs. And let’s be honest, that was a lot of waste.

Second part of prep was documenting my goals and keeping them visible.  It’s easier to prioritize all of your To-dos when you understand what you’re trying to accomplish, much like the team having sprint goals! I didn’t want them in yet another tool, I wanted them in my face as much as possible. One of George’s many great pieces of advice was that every week, you should do at least one thing that contributes towards hitting your goals. Ideally everything you do contributes to the goal but sometimes you just have to drop packages off at the Post Office before Tuesday so people get their gifts on time In Nozbe, it just meant creating them as To-dos in a Goals bucket, marking them high priority, and making sure they appear at the top of my daily task list. Here’s a preview of what that looks like:

I marked my goals as a high priority (note the star at far right), so when I am looking at the current week’s commitments (also starred), my goals are always included:

Next step, To-do #1 is categorizing all my stuff into “buckets” and prioritizing. We’ll tackle that in another blog post, which will appear on that list above this coming Sunday during my weekly planning “meeting” – and we’ll talk more about my cadence for planning in yet another blog post.

I hope this has given you some ideas if you too are struggling to keep what’s most important in focus, or if you are a serial over-committer like I have been for so long.

And here’s my schill for Nozbe (complete with an affiliate link), because it really is a pretty great tool if you’re looking for something digital to manage all of your To-dos.

-

About once a quarter, I come to a breaking point where I’ve dug myself into a commitment hole so deep I don’t see any way out other than working nights and weekend for a couple of weeks to get my head back above sea level. Ironic, given that I am an agile coach right? Ironic, and embarrassing. But what kind of coach and leader would I be to NOT share my failures, to show some humility, and then take action to improve? I decided I was done running, done being frantic and reactive, I needed a better way.

Now, there is certainly no one-size-fits-all solution for these kinds of things, but I just happen to work with George Evjen, one of our agile coaches down in St. Louis, and he shared with me what has worked for him. I share this because I am likely not alone, and maybe this will spark something in you.

I should back up and give you a little context. I am a Principal Consultant at Polaris and I not only actively juggle multiple clients, but I am responsible for sales and marketing, contributing to business strategy, managing client engagements and relationships, coaching and mentoring other employees, and I’m a Microsoft ALM MVP which comes with its own set of accountabilities like public speaking, blogging, and both organizing and speaking at tech conferences and user groups across the country. Oh, and I also mentor a couple of people outside of my company as well. For funzies. WHEW!

To say I wear many hats would be an understatement.

The way I manage all of that is, well, not terribly elegant or effective. I have backlogs in Nozbe (non-sales related work stuff), Pipedrive (sales related work stuff), and multiple VSTS instances (Polaris accountabilities and various client accountabilities). My email also serves as a backlog of sorts, as does OneNote, and my little yellow PacMan notebook that I use in business meetings where I collect even more things I am going to be accountable for. Long story short, I have about 8 different places I need to look at any given time to figure out what I should be doing every day. And this is just for work. THIS IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE LONG-TERM STRATEGY.

Back to George.

I decided to swallow my pride and ask for help from a coworker that seems to have this problem tackled. I showed George all 8 of my “backlogs” and he responded in a really unexpected way. He said “wow, all of those tools are really great. I wouldn’t stop using them”. I was expecting him to say “c’mon Angela, dump all of those tools, that’s a terrible strategy!” Instead, he pointed out that as I was using them, each one was really valuable in its own way. The flaw was that they didn’t allow me to effectively plan out what I needed to do each week or to visualize what I actually had capacity for. Hmm, so you’re saying I should be refining the (8) lists of things that people need from me onto a single, prioritized, and manageable sized list of things that I can confidently commit to in say, a week. I then need to really dig into planning just that week. BRILLIANT!  This is where I start blushing madly, because this is PRECISLEY what we coach our clients to do on a daily basis. This is like Agile 101.

If there was ever an appropriate time to user the old trope “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes”, this is it! I spend my career directing my clients to invest in planning, accountability, and transparency so that they can provide more value to their customers, avoid burnout of their employees, and build a culture where people feel like they can be successful and happy. But I was neglecting all of that when it came to my own career. I was burning out, and hindering my ability to provide value to the people I serve, which is what defines success and happiness for me.

This is not a sitcom, so alas I have no happy ending to show that I am now the master of my own career plan, not yet anyway. George gave me a few ToDo’s to get me moving in the right direction, and I’ll share those now, and provide an update when I’ve had a chance to internalize and execute on them for a while. I also setup a recurring coaching session with George so that he can help me to hold myself accountable, and do a mini-retro each week to see what worked and where we may need to improve upon my strategy.

My 3 big ToDos for the rest of this week are:

1) Identify all of the roles I fulfill on a daily basis, both at Polaris and in my personal life. I already color code these on my Outlook calendar so I can see where my biggest “investments are”, and I love this idea.

2) Start categorizing the things on my backlogs under my identified roles and prioritize them. It will help me figure out what to jettison or delegate when I can see I am going to be over-committed.

3) Invest in a planning cadence to cut through the noise and focus on what is important

a. Every Sunday night I am going to review all of my various backlog and identify the most important things for that upcoming week, let’s call it a “sprint”

b. Visualize everything I am committing to for the upcoming week on an actual physical thing – yes, another backlog, but now just the ONE. I am still investigating what this one place will be, and as I am really visual, this may literally be a paper day planner that I can have on me at all times

c. Each night I am going to review what I’ve accomplished that day, what new stuff came up during the day, and refine my plan for the next day as necessary

Wish me luck!

Join APLN on Thursday, November 9, 2017 between 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM to chat with me about metrics that really matter. This talk is aimed at any organization regardless of your size, industry, platform, or process.

The Nielsen Company

150 N Martingale Rd, Schaumburg, IL (map)

Venue is near Woodfield Mall. If coming in through the front entrance, take a left and people will see a sign for the event (look to the right if coming in from the parking garage).

Topic:  How do You Measure up? Collect the Right Metrics for the Right Reasons

Description: 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. In some cases, metrics can even have a demoralizing or counterproductive effect on the team!

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 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.

Preliminary Agenda:

6:00 - 6:30 : Networking and Food
6:30 - 8:20 : How do You Measure up? Collect the Right Metrics for the Right Reasons
8:20 - 8:30 : Closing

Food and refreshments which will be provided during the networking period.

Sign up here!

Microsoft and Polaris Solutions are teaming up to host Damian Brady on Wednesday November 1st in Downers Grove, IL. He'll spend an action packed hour giving you a guided tour of Visual Studio Team Services to see how seamlessly it works for any developer using any platform.

"This is no longer the Microsoft of old! I’ll be showing live demos in three different operating systems, using three different languages! As a developer, you can easily use your existing toolset and existing investments alongside VSTS and Azure. Come and learn about all the new VSTS announcements, out of the box features, and extensibility options to help your team adopt new Agile, Git, and DevOps practices!" ~Damian

Please be sure to register for the event, building security will not allow unregistered guests to enter the Microsoft space.

Dinner will be provided, and parking is always free and easy at this location.

Damian is an Australian CDA specializing in DevOps. He's currently based in Toronto, Canada, but will be moving back to Australia - the land of the dangerous creatures and beautiful beaches - in 2018.

Formerly a dev at Octopus Deploy and a Microsoft MVP, he has a background in software development and consulting in a broad range of industries. In Australia, he co-organized the Brisbane .Net User Group, and launched the now annual DDD Brisbane conference. He regularly speaks at conferences, User Groups, and other events around the world, and he's been an occasional guest on various podcasts like .NET Rocks and Hanselminutes.

Most of the time you'll find him talking to developers and IT Pros to help them get the most out of their DevOps strategies. https://twitter.com/damovisa

Wanted to share out this awesome opportunity coming to Chicago next week, on October 16th. I’ll be down in St Louis at the DevUp conference, but I’ll be watching my twitter feed to see what exciting news comes from this event, so keep me posted

The event is being held at the Field Museum, in the James Simpson Theater.  There is no cost to attend, so be sure to register now for FREE while there are still spots available!

Below is the event description and agenda:

Whether you’re new to the cloud or a seasoned expert, you’ll learn something at the Azure Red Shirt Dev Tour ‘17. The Red Shirt Tour is all about code. Join Microsoft’s cloud chief, Scott Guthrie, as he codes live and demonstrates how Azure can help you solve some of your most vexing developer problems.

Scott Guthrie is the Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group. As executive vice president of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group, Scott Guthrie is responsible for the company’s cloud infrastructure, server, database, CRM, ERP, management and development tools businesses. His engineering team builds Microsoft Azure, SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Active Directory, System Center, Visual Studio and .NET.

It’s with special thanks to the Kate Spade store on Michigan Ave that the Chicago IAMCP WIT chapter invites you to join us for an evening of networking, cocktails and a fireside chat with Jo Ann Mirabelli as she discusses Overcoming Adversity and Keeping a Positive Attitude.

Jo Ann’s journey with battling breast cancer has taken her on a journey that has been physically and emotionally trying — she’s focused on turning her experience into inspiration to help others be the best version of themselves.

Jo Ann’s Mantra Blocks will also be available for purchase ($20 each) as she donates the proceeds to Metavivor—a Metastatic Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

The evening of the event, Kate Spade will also offer a 15% discount on everything in the store. Reserve your spot, as seating is limited!

There is still time, so register today!

About IAMCP WIT: Together, we’ve built a strong network of global communities where women can collaborate, support and empower each other to do amazing things that change the world. Supported by Microsoft and the IAMCP, we hope to inspire girls to dream of roles in technology and help women thrive in the industry, without doubting they belong there.

I am a big fan of Brene Brown and her work around vulnerability, shame, and trust. At first it was something I was spending time on with my own coach as a self-improvement project, then, over time, I started to connect with it again as a coach and mentor to others. And the more I talk about it, the more it’s clear that I’m not alone. I went off in search of some good resources on building trust and transparency, and unshockingly I ended up once again taking advice from Brene Brown. 

Today I watched this video of hers that digs in on the subject “the anatomy of trust”, and admittedly I found myself questioning my interactions with people, my reactions to difficult situations, and I was pretty sure that I was coming up short. Trust is integral to building long, lasting, and meaningful relationships, both personally and professionally. Trust is a tricky thing. Tricky because it can be fragile, emotional, and so hard to build and earn, especially if you’ve lost it or had it broken. Do people trust me? And who do I *really* trust myself?

I don’t have the answers just yet. And since I am pretty sure I am not alone in these doubts, I wanted to share some of my takeaways from the talk. Here are some things that really stuck out:

Brene describes trust as a marble jar that fills slowly until it’s full enough that trust is established. Others fill our marble jars and we fill theirs. Marbles can also be taken out through little “betrayals”. What kinds of things can you do for others to fill the marble jars so that they trust you?

• Being genuinely interested in people’s lives, the good and bad
• Asking for help when you need it
• Attending funerals
• Sharing your hardest stories (a.k.a. showing vulnerability)
• Choosing to connect when opportunities arise

Trust also requires validity and reliability.  Validity was fairly straightforward, but reliability caught me off guard. It made me realize that it’s something I try to pride myself on but as of late have struggled with incredibly. Reliability means we don’t take on so much that we can’t follow through on our commitments. GUILTY.AS.CHARGED

Breaking commitments is an example of a small deception that removed marbles from our trust jars. And it’s not just breaking work commitments, those hollow offers of “oh my gosh we should have lunch soon, I’ll be in touch”, and you know it’s never gonna happen. We’ve likely all done it, and as well intentioned and harmless as it seems to just say, it erodes trust.

Trust is choosing to make something important to you, vulnerable to the actions of someone else. ~Charles Feltman, from “The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work” (I’ve already ordered a copy of that book)

Trust is built in small moments, over time. A lot of time.

BRAVING connections requires Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-judgement, Generosity. FWIW I might do a separate post on BRAVING but it’ll take some time.

“Beware the naked man offering you a shirt” ~African Proverb. I couldn’t resist a little humor because this post was getting awfully heavy. But honestly, it begs the question: Do you trust yourself? If not, how can you ask others to trust you?

This of course makes me start to think about how so many of the teams I work with are struggling to be successful in an agile environment, and an environment that 100% relies on trust and transparency to thrive requires an immense amount of trust. What things are teams doing that are blocking their marble jars from being full?  Are they braving connections? Definitely gives me some interesting new discussion points and analogies.

Hey friends! In case you haven’t heard, I’ll be speaking at Visual Studio Live in Chicago this year! ::cue massive Imposter syndrome episode:: 

Not familiar with VS Live? Visual Studio Live! provides you with immediately usable training and education that will keep you relevant in the workforce.  You’ll hear from Microsoft folks and industry experts about the latest news, new developments in tools and processes, and get some awesome networking opportunities. The conference is happening September 18-21, so sign up soon and get that time off requested before it sells out.

I am really excited to have the chance to share some of my experiences with you at the following sessions this year:

• Getting Your Agile Team Unstuck! Tips and Tricks for Blasting Through Common Setbacks
• Improve Your Retrospective Outcomes with Agile Kaizen

Now for the part you really came here for – I have been extended a special offer to share with you.  As a speaker, I can extend $400 savings on the 4-day package.

Register here: http://bit.ly/CHSPK08reg, the special discount code (CHSPK08) should pre-populate for you.

Amplify your knowledge at Visual Studio Live! Chicago — bring the issues that keep you up at night and prepare to leave this event with the answers, guidance and training you need.

As you may or may not know, I was one of the masterminds behind #ThatGameNight at ThatConference. My husband and I are huge fans of board games and it felt like a great way to get people together for a night of fun! It’s become an extremely popular event attended by hundreds of campers and their families every year, and to help us keep the momentum going we have established a partnership with a great, local board game shop. In case this is all news to you, a little background…

ThatGameNight is a free, social event open to all ThatConference attendees and their families on Monday night of the conference every year. ThatGameNight will be happening during and after the Monday night Happy Hour, so grab some refreshments and head on over to the gaming areas that night, we’ll have a lot of activities setup so you’ll have a blast even if board games are not your thing! The event begins at 6 pm and continues until midnight, and the schedule is flexible, so feel free to stop by at any point during the event and stay as long as you like.

Boardlandia is once again partnering up with That Conference to supply a free library of games for all ages to borrow and play while at That GameNight. As a special perk to all That Conference attendees, you can also go to their website to check out their full catalogue, and if you see something you like, they are offering an option to pre-purchase games and accept delivery at That GameNight – just use the "Free Pick up at That Conference 2017 Game Night" option when you place your order.  Pre-ordering will end on July 31st.

You can also bring your own games if you like, but be sure to take advantage of the Boardlandia game library if you can. It will be a great chance to discover new games, and meet new people!

We're also going to have a Pinewood Derby track set up at ThatGamenight. Come on out with your pre-built pinewood derby car and challenge your fellow campers to a race for bragging rights. Old and young alike can use the track, so use those engineering skills to build your best car and bring it out to trounce the competition!

Just wanted to share an event that I’ll be speaking at later this month, it will be my first time ever with this group so I’m excited to be able to meet a bunch of new tech-minded folks in the Chicago area! I’d love to see some familiar faces as well, and who among us doesn’t need better database skills? Polaris Solutions is also sponsoring this meeting, so dinner is on us

Chicago Suburban SQL Server User Group
-------
DATE:

Tuesday June 20, 2017

AGENDA:
5:30PM - Doors Open
6:00PM - Meeting Start with Dinner, Networking, & Open Q&A (bring your questions!)
6:30PM - Announcements, Sponsor Presentation, & Main Presentation

REGISTER:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chisub-ssug-june-meeting-tickets-35162771797

TITLE: Fear and (Self) Loathing in IT – A Healthy Discussion on Imposter Syndrome
ABSTRACT: 
Many of us feel nervous or fearful about raising our voices or speaking our opinions out loud - whether at a business meeting, a team retrospective, a conference, or even from your cubicle chair. We sometimes feel hesitant to fully engage with our team and be ourselves lest we be “found out” as someone who really doesn’t belong, isn’t smart/experienced enough, or who doesn’t deserve to be there. If you’re wondering what Imposter Syndrome is, or how you would even know if it affects you or a team mate, think about the following questions:
* Do you feel like no matter how much you study or prepare for a new challenge, that you’ll just never be ready for it and that people are crazy to even trust you with real responsibilities?
* Do you panic at the idea of asking for help when you get stuck on a challenging problem because everyone will think you have no idea what you’re doing? 
* Do you continually beat yourself up about minor mistakes that likely no one else even remembers, or noticed in the first place?
* Are you constantly comparing yourselves to peers, friends, or event Twitter followers and finding that you just never seem to stack up?
If you answered yes to any (or maybe all) of these questions, you might be experiencing Imposter Syndrome. You may even recognize some of these behaviors in loved ones, coworkers, and friends. And it’s not silly, trivial, or something you’ll “just grow out of”. Many people have been experiencing Imposter Syndrome since childhood. But when does this anxiety become unhealthy? Is Imposter syndrome something we really even NEED to cure? I’d like to share some of my own adventures in embracing my fears, learning to trust myself and others, getting comfortable with asking for help, and developing shame resilience. I’ll also talk about the unexpected and very positive outcomes that followed taking the leap to embrace my “phoniness”.
So whether your roles in life include team lead, manager, scrum master-in-training, tester, project manager, significant other, and/or parent - recognizing Imposter Syndrome in yourself and others and knowing how to thrive with it is an important skill to develop!

SPEAKER BIO:
Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant for Polaris Solutions, a software technology and agile/DevOps process consulting firm based in Chicago. Her focus as a Principal Consultant is supporting her clients in increasing their agility and improving their DevOps capabilities through training and coaching their people, streamlining their processes, and implementing modern automation and collaboration tools. Angela has been in the software industry since 1999, is an active tech community contributor, and organizes a number of local meetups and conferences including IAMCP Women in Tech, Chicago Code Camp, ThatConference, and St. Louis DevUp. She is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant.
Outside of wrangling organizational transformations, Angela is an avid board gamer, an accidental Crossfitter, an aspiring crafty diva, and a Twitter addict. She is constantly working on her 1910 house in Oak Park with her husband David, where they raise two ornery chickens Betsy and Gertrude and a rambunctious GSP named Sadie.

So if you’ve installed and started playing around with the latest version of Visual Studio Microsoft Test Manager (MTM), you might have noticed this “Warning”: “Consider using the Test hub in web access instead of Microsoft Test Manager”

::gulps::

Now, for those of us who have been using MTM and web access for years, we saw this coming a while ago, it’s no secret that Microsoft has been putting a TON of effort into making the web testing experience first class! And truth be told, I have some concerned customers. And heck, I was a curmudgeon at first too

:: bah, in my day we used clunky old desktop tools that hogged all of our CPU and memory and we LIKED it! ::

I’ve spent a lot of time building out complex test plans, do I lose all of that?

Absolutely not, it is all still there. And I’d even argue that it is more intuitive to find what you need on the web!

But what about my rich exploratory testing experience complete with data collection?

OK, fair, it’s not *quite* all there just yet, but it’s getting closer, and what it DOES have is what 90% of my customers use on a day-to-day basis anyway.

What about those nifty built-in reports that I rely on?

HA, there are much BETTER reports today, including some nifty dashboard widgets to make it so that everyone can see the reports, not just MTM users. 

What about some of my advanced features like cloning test cases, suites, and plans?!?

OK, you got me, not everything exists on the web yet, but you do still have the ability to use the desktop tool while you’re waiting for more advanced options to become available on the web

So fear not, loyal MTM users! MTM is not dead, yet, but the writing is on the wall. While you may not see 100% of the features from MTM in the web based tooling today, as in right this second, it gets closer to feature parity with every update so wait 5 minutes and hit refresh. This is especially true especially if you’re connecting to Visual Studio Team Services instead of TFS on-premises. VSTS gets updated every 3 weeks, while on-premises and client based tools get updated closer to once a quarter.  And MTM, well my friends, it’s not getting much love these days so I’ll be honest, you should start transitioning soon!

Looking for help updating your environment or getting trained on the new system? Give me or any of my fellow team members at Polaris Solutions a buzz!

It’s a new age, a new era, where Microsoft is leading the Open Source revolution.

//BUILD is the Microsoft Developer event of the year where we learn about the strategy and direction that the technology will take. Join us for the Best of Build, a half day developer focused event that will take you thru the latest features and share what's compelling and exciting. Explore the possible at Best of Build 2017.

The schedule will cover:

• Build 2017 Keynote Highlights
• Mobile Center
• Going Serverless with Azure Functions
• Hackfest/Pizza Party

REGISTER now to secure your seat!

Where and when

Thu, June 1, 2017
8:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Microsoft Office - Chicago/Downers Grove
3025 Highland Pkwy
Suite 300
Downers Grove, IL 60515

Not in Chicago? No problem, this roadshow is traveling the country. More scheduled cities are listed below with more coming soon!

• 5/22 – St Louis http://bit.ly/bob17stl
• 5/23 – Kansas City http://bit.ly/bob17kc
• 5/24 – Omaha http://bit.ly/bob17omaha
• 5/25 – Des Moines http://bit.ly/bob17dsm
• 5/26 – Minneapolis http://bit.ly/bob17msp
• 5/31 – Austin http://bit.ly/bob17aus
• 6/2 - Milwaukee http://bit.ly/bob17mke
• 6/5 – New York City  http://bit.ly/bob17nyc
• 6/7 - Tampa http://bit.ly/bob17fl
• 6/9 - Atlanta http://bit.ly/bob17ga
• 6/12 - Portland http://bit.ly/bob17or
• 6/14 - San Diego http://bit.ly/bob17sd
• 6/15 - Phoenix http://bit.ly/bob17az
• 6/16 - Denver http://bit.ly/bob17co

In order to be successful in today's global marketplace, organizations are moving to a more agile approach to software development. In order to be competitive, organizations must look to reduce lead times from years to weeks. One of the barriers to this are the lead times of provisioning infrastructure. Enter DevOps. And what is one way DevOps can accomplish such a herculean feat…Infrastructure as Code!

Infrastructure as Code is all about automating the work of IT Operations and treating it like application code. This session will be jam-packed with Visual Studio, Git, VSTS, PowerShell, ARM, Azure, OMS, DSC and more as we show how we can automate the provisioning and management of our infrastructure…all as code.

How are your environments provisioned today? Are you still racking servers, managing environments on a spreadsheet or deploying infrastructure with "Next…Next…Finish"? If so, this session is for you!

Attendees will learn the following objectives:

• What Infrastructure as Code is
• How Azure can help automate the process of environment provisioning
• Create a full end-to-end solution of automating infrastructure and operations

Dinner will be provided for all registered attendees!

Agenda

6:00PM: Dinner and networking

6:30PM: Presentation begins

8:00PM: Closing remarks

About the speaker: Christopher Mank is the Co-founder and Chief Technologist at White Ficus and a Cloud and Datacenter MVP with a focus in ALM/DevOps and automation. He engages with customers to understand how they plan, build, test, and release software today and help them do it better with automation across the entire lifecycle.
Christopher has technical expertise in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), TFS, System Center, .Net, PowerShell, SQL Server, Azure, ARM, Azure Automation, DSC, OMS, and Application Insights.

************************************************************************************************************************

************************************************************************************************************************

Special Announcement and discount code for Polaris event attendees:

Visual Studio Live! is coming to Chicago this Fall!

Visual Studio Live! (VSLive!™) is thrilled to be returning to Chicago, September 18-21 at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile! Developers, software architects, engineers and designers will be on a mission to code during four days of unbiased and cutting-edge education on the Microsoft Platform. Cruise through the hottest topics, jam with industry and Microsoft insiders and let loose with your peers -- all designed to give you the best in independent training to help make you a coding rock star!

Exclusive savings: register with priority code CHUG04 to save $500 off the standard 4-day rate! More info: http://bit.ly/CHUG04home

************************************************************************************************************************

In June we have another great opportunity to talk to someone at Microsoft who has walked the path that many of us are looking to walk. Please join us in hearing from someone who knows how rocky an agile transformation can be, particularly in a MASSIVE company like Microsoft.More about Microsoft's agile and DevOps journey can be found on their website.

Dinner will be provided.

Description of the talk:

Everyone accepts that agile methods and practices work… but how do you apply them at scale without stifling the creativity, autonomy, and energy of your teams? Listen as Aaron Bjork describes how Microsoft has undergone radical changes in recent years to build a culture of “Aligned Autonomy”. Aaron will share stories from before and after, and talk about some of the key changes that have contributed to the new Microsoft

Agenda:

6:00pm: Grab dinner and a seat!

6:30pm: The DevOps show begins

PLEASE REGISTER HERE, Aon security regulations require it!

Speaker Bio:

Aaron Bjork is a Principal Group Program Manager working in Microsoft’s Developer Division where drives all investments in work management, agile project management, reporting, and collaboration for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services and Team Foundation Server products.

Aaron joined Microsoft in 2002 working as a software engineer and development lead on the Visual Studio product line. Prior to joining Microsoft, Aaron worked for various startups in the Seattle area. Aaron is passionate about Agile, DevOps, and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and has a strong desire to see teams improve their software engineering practices & culture.

Aaron holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Washington. When he’s not writing code or designing new features, you’ll find him doing projects with his family on their hobby farm or working to lower his handicap on the golf course.

****************************************************************************************************************

If you are driving to this event, don't forget that you can get great deals on parking using SpotHero!

****************************************************************************************************************

Special Announcement and discount code for Polaris event attendees:

Visual Studio Live! is coming to Chicago this Fall!

Visual Studio Live! (VSLive!™) is thrilled to be returning to Chicago, September 18-21 at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile! Developers, software architects, engineers and designers will be on a mission to code during four days of unbiased and cutting-edge education on the Microsoft Platform. Cruise through the hottest topics, jam with industry and Microsoft insiders and let loose with your peers -- all designed to give you the best in independent training to help make you a coding rock star!

Exclusive savings: register with priority code CHUG04 to save $500 off the standard 4-day rate! More info: http://bit.ly/CHUG04home

Polaris is a proud sponsor of the St. Louis Silver Linings conference this year, and I wanted to pass on the news about this amazing event in case you haven’t had a chance to check it out.

 
St. Louis Silver Linings is the largest conference in the region covering three big trends in the IT industry: DevOps, Data Sciences, and Cloud Computing.

The event is on May 2nd and kicks off with a keynote from Veronica S. Smith, data scientist and founder of data2insight. Following the keynote, the conference will feature breakout sessions covering topics from data science, big data, machine learning, intelligent cloud, DevOps, tooling, and more! Visit the speakers page to see the list of distinguished speakers already confirmed.

Event Info
May 2, 2017
7:00 AM – 6:00 PM CDT
St. Charles Convention Center
1 Convention Center Plaza
St. Charles, MO 63303

Register Now to reserve your seat!

In case you hadn’t seen the announcements, there is a great, free event coming to the Chicagoland area to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2017! Details and registration link below…

Since Visual Studio launched 20 years ago it has evolved to become a favorite IDE of the casual to professional developer. With the launch of Visual Studio 2017 Microsoft has stepped up their game with improvements to make it easier to work with Cloud, Mobile and Web, as well as a number of productivity improvements.

Join us for a morning of exploring the possible with Mike Benkovich (@mbenko) and Mitch Muenster (@mobileRez) as we take a look the latest tools and technologies with Visual Studio, Xamarin and the Mobile Center, and DevOps with Team Services. The day starts at 8:30 and ends with a hackfest/install pizza party.

Tentative agenda:

• 8:30 – Hello Visual Studio
• 9:45 – Exploring Mobile Stack
• 11:00 – DevOps, .NET Core, Docker and more
• 12:00 – Pizza & Hackfest

When: Mon, April 17, 2017

8:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Where: Microsoft Office - Downers Grove

3025 Highland Pkwy

Suite 300

Downers Grove, IL 60515

View Map

Register today!

DevOps is about people, process and products. Getting it all right requires effort but the benefits to your organization and customers can be huge. Microsoft has a fantastic set of products that can adapt to any language on any platform. In this demo-heavy session, Donovan Brown will show you how to go from "zero to DevOps" like a pro. Starting from just a blank desktop, he will create a new team project and a complete pipeline. He will also deploy an ASP.NET MVC application into Azure, all live and hands on. Why is DevOps one of the hottest topics? Because it hurts the most. Luckily, Donovan's unofficial tag line is #RubDevOpsOnIt and he's here to make it all better.

This is going to be an action packed event, and a rare opportunity to speak to the Principal DevOps Program Manager at Microsoft himself. So come ready to drink from the DevOps firehose!

Agenda for Wed, April 12, 2017

6:00pm: Grab dinner and a seat!

6:30pm: The DevOps show begins

Register soon on our Events page as the event will likely sell out!

Location: Microsoft Midwest District

200 East Randolph Street

#200

Chicago, IL 60601

View Map

Speaker: Donovan Brown, Principal DevOps Program Manager, Microsoft

Meet the Man in the Black Shirt. Donovan Brown is a Principal DevOps Program Manager on Microsoft's US Developer Division team. Before joining Microsoft, Donovan spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master. Developer Tools are his thing. Donovan has travelled the globe helping companies in the U.S., Canada, India, Germany, and the UK develop solutions using agile practices, Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server in industries as broad as Communications, Health Care, Energy, and Financial Services. What else keeps the wheels spinning on The Man in The Black Shirt? Donovan's also an avid programmer, often finding ways to integrate software into his other hobbies and activities, one of which is Professional Air Hockey where he has ranked as high as 11 in the world.

Please note: Due to Aon Center security, you MUST be registered to attend.

If you are a Team Foundation Server customer, you may already understand how valuable it is to bring your teams together in one place to orchestrate your entire development lifecycle. Now that Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has been launched, there are many compelling reasons to consider migrating your on-premises Team Foundation Server to the cloud.

Please join us as we share our key insights and action plans for migrating your enterprise to VSTS.

Our partners at OpsHub will share their story about integrating VSTS with other enterprise services in their organization, and how it has helped them create a more productive and customer focused ecosystem. They will take us through their journey from the pre-agile phase to the customer-obsessed phase and share their insights on leveraging the power of integration to deliver quality product and services in a shorter cycle time.

Complimentary lunch will be provided. Seating is limited. Please register to attend!

Key Takeaways:

Highlights of VSTS capabilities

Navigating the ALM and DevOps ecosystem

Migration Considerations

Integration with other enterprise services

Next Steps

Date and Time: Thu, March 30, 2017 from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Location

Microsoft - Downer's Grove

3025 Highland Parkway

Suite #200

Downers Grove, IL 60515

Presenters:

Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant for Polaris Solutions, a consulting firm based out of Chicago, Denver, and St. Louis. Angela has been in software since 1999, filling roles including business analyst, developer, tester, project manager, and agile coach. Prior to joining Polaris, Angela spent 5 years as a TFS specialist with Microsoft, where her passion for working with the local community was sparked. In 2011 she followed her passion for problem solving to Polaris, and now runs their ALM Practice. Angela runs the Chicago ALM user group, is an active organizer/speaker at local conferences including ThatConference, is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant.

Sandeep Jain is the founder and CEO of OpsHub Inc. His vision for making software integration and migration a customer-friendly affair is the driving force behind OpsHub. Sandeep has 25 years of experience in the software industry. He has been at the forefront of driving agile transformation through his expertise in ALM and DevOps integration and has filed more than 20 patents in the domain.

Building security requires you to be pre-registered.  Please sign up on our events page.

Have you seen Team Foundation Server (TFS) and its cloud based sibling Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) lately? TFS/VSTS has evolved significantly over the past 2 – 3 years. In this presentation and demo we will take a look at some of the newer features such as the Agile planning tool updates, Git integration enhancements, cross platform build and release tools, (You can now build Java, iOS and Android apps!) and the browser based manual testing tools.

Have you thought about migrating from TFS to VSTS? Microsoft now has migration tools to move to VSTS without losing anything that you currently have in TFS. Angela Dugan will be walking you through some options for migrating to VSTS, including the new high-fidelity migration tool.

This session will be on the heels of Microsoft’s virtual launch event for Visual Studio 2017 and before The 360 on Innovative Application event on March 16th so, it will be packed with tons of information about the changes that Microsoft has made in Visual Studio 2017, TFS 2017 and VSTS.

Make sure to REGISTER for the event by March 13th, 2017!

Agenda

6:00PM: Dinner and networking

6:30PM: Presentation begins

8:00PM: Closing remarks

Speaker Bios

Dave Burnison works as a technology specialist for Microsoft's application lifecycle management product line and Azure development workloads. Dave is super-passionate about ALM and the software development life cycle, and has worked in the software development industry his entire career. Having worked for both startups and large companies, his strength is his knowledge of the overall software development lifecycle paired with technical skills which allow him to create and manage ALM systems, processes and procedures that enable software development teams to become as efficient and productive as possible. On the personal front, when he’s not at work Dave enjoys spending time with his family and friends, being involved in his church, and following the NFL and NASCAR.

Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant and Practice Manager for Polaris Solutions, a software technology and process consulting firm based in Chicago. Her focus as Practice Manager is supporting clients through training and coaching as they work together to increase their agility and improve their DevOps practices. Angela has been in the industry since 1999, and spent over 5 years as a technology evangelist with Microsoft. Angela is an active technology community member in Chicago and organizes several local conferences including Chicago Code Camp, ThatConference, and St. Louis DevUp. She is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant. Outside of wrangling TFS, Angela is an avid board gamer, an aspiring runner, and a Twitter addict. She is constantly working on her 1910 house in Oak Park with her husband David, where they raise two ornery chickens named Betsy and Gertrude, and a rambunctious puppy named Sadie.  And yes, that goes about as well as you’d imagine

Make sure to REGISTER for the event by March 13th, 2017!