Certified Scrum Master

I received my official Certified Scrum Master certification from the Scrum Alliance this weekend. Apparently I received my training a month before they instituted a test for the certification. This has been hotly debated on the web for some time and all I have to add is that most certifications (earned via a test or not) have very little value by themselves. My CSM is quite a bit like the CNE, MCSD, etc. technical certifications that were so in vogue for awhile. You could also compare it to a college degree. I know plenty of great developers who never finished college and I know plenty of incompetent people with Masters. I feel my past few years of successes and failures using Scrum is what counts. The certification is great for the resume and clients will like it, but I was happy just to attend and hear what Jeff Sutherland and Joe Little had to say as well as have some great discussions with my classmates.

Microsoft Mini-PDC in Nashville, Dec. 11th

Microsoft and Compuware are brining some of the content from PDC 2008 to Nashville for those (like me) who were not able to attend. Previews of VSTS 2010, .NET 4.0, C# futures, and Azure will be shown. We are also giving away an Xbox 360. Seating will be limited so sign up early by emailing us at jeanne.waskiewicz@compuware.com.

Comfortably Scrum: Free Scrum Dashboard on CodePlex

Thanks to the guys over at TFS Times I found this cool web application on CodePlex. This is a web based dashboard for the Conchango Scrum Process Template for Team Foundation Server. It provides some basic rollup information about work item states and hours, a sprint burn down chart, and a sprint task board similar to the WPF application version being released by Conchango next month. You can drag and drop items to different states like Conchango's application aslo.

I had a few issues getting it to work but nothing major. It is pretty cool for a free tool. The WPF app from Conchango has more features, but it costs $90 per license so this can be a cheap alternative.

CodePlex has a ton of TFS content and if you use Team Foundation Server at your development shop I highly suggest you check it out.

Mark Mydland, Program Director for VSTS Test, in Nashville

Our favorite Microsoft geek chic Jennifer Marsman is bring the Program Director for Visual Studio Team System Test Edition, Mark Mydland, to Nashville on November 19th. Mark will be showing off some of the new test features in VSTS 2010. There will also be giveaways and free dinner. Space is limited so to RSVP please reply by email to Jeanne Waskiewicz or by phone at (615) 238-0333. Seating will be limited to only 60 guests, so please RSVP as soon as possible. Registration will close at 5 PM Monday the 17th or when we meet our cap of 60 attendees. The event will start at 6:00 PM at the Microsoft offices at 2555 Meridian Blvd, Suite 300, Franklin, TN 37067. Here is a Google map, but do not believe the satellite view. Below is more information about the presentation and our speaker:


Topic: Breaking Serve on Dev/Test Ping Pong in Visual Studio 2010

This has probably never happened to you, but picture this scenario: a tester finds a bug, writes it up, and sends it to the appropriate developer. The developer can’t reproduce the bug and sends it back. The tester digs around a bit more to find better repro steps. The developer insists it’s a configurable error of the tester. Back and forth we go. In VSTS 2010, this process is streamlined by automatically gathering critical information about the project and code and making that data available when, where, and to whom it is needed. During this talk, Mark Mydland (Principal Group Manager of VSTS Test) will demonstrate these cool new features and dive into technical topics on the new architect tools, some amazing research work for concurrency and for bounds checking, 3-tier execution, and data recording (aka “Tivo for debugging”).

Speaker: Mark Mydland

Mark Mydland is the Principal Group Manager for the Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers product at Microsoft. In the past 12 years, Mark has worked as a developer and consultant across a wide variety of applications and industries. Mark first joined Microsoft in 2001 working as a member of the Natural Interactive Services Division (NISD). During his time in that group, Mark was the development manager for a team focused on analytics for assessing the efficacy of natural language interpreters with a particular emphasis on driving authoring simplification and relevance quality for user assistance. Based on this work, Mark filed numerous patents and coauthored a paper for the SIGIR journal. In 2004, Mark left Microsoft to work as a Director of Development at Getty Images where he led a change in process from a traditional waterfall methodology to a scrum-based agile approach which brought the release frequency from 12-18 months down to 1 month. Since Getty made extensive use of VSTS, it seemed a natural fit for Mark to join VSTS on his return to Microsoft in 2006. Mark received his B.S. from West Point in 1991. He has also held positions with USWeb/marchFirst and Andersen Consulting/Accenture.

We would like to thank Compuware for sponsoring the event.

Microsoft Bizspark Program

Earlier this month Microsoft announced its BizSpark program for startup comapnies. This seems like a great program for any privately held company, in business for less than 3 years, and makes less that $1 million in annual revenue. The reason I mention it is that the program comes with a VSTS MSDN Premium subscription and Team Foundation Server 2008 Standard Edition. As I perform more of my TFS/Scrum coaching engagements I get feedback from smaller, new companies about how they cannot afford TFS and this program could possibly help some of them get the software. If you own or work for a private startup, definitely check out this offering!