Meeting this week, Jan 19th.

This month’s meeting is this Thursday Jan 19th. Randy Pagels will be presenting “A Sneak Peek of Visual Studio & Team Foundation Server 11”, see previous post for speaker bio and abstract. This meeting and all future meetings will be held at the office of Improving Enterprises at Easton. 4449 Easton Way, Suite 100, Columbus, Ohio 43219. City Barbeque will be catered in for dinner.

Welcome to Daniel Gray, COALMG Leader

Alexei and I welcome Daniel Gray of Improving Enterprises to the leadership team for COALMG. While Alexei and I will remain involved, Daniel will assume the lead for organizing meetings, booking speakers and proliferating the group. If you have suggestions, want to sponsor or would like to volunteer, feel free to contact Daniel (and all of us) by leaving a comment on the blog.

Thanks, Daniel! Welcome to the team.

Upcoming Meeting January 19th

A Sneak Peek of Visual Studio & Team Foundation Server 11
Randy Pagels, Microsoft
Microsoft’s application lifecycle management tooling is all about enabling teams to deliver great software. You will learn how to more effectively plan and track work by using the new web-based project management tools; how to bridge the divide between development and operations by utilizing IntelliTrace in your production environments; and how to help keep team members on-task and “in the zone”, no matter how much there’re randomized. See the new “My Work” experience for managing your active tasks and integrated code review features. In addition to making your team more productive, you will see how you can boost your overall code quality with new features such as code clone and an overhauled unit testing story in Visual Studio 11. With Team Foundation Server you will see the full gamut of collaboration improvements, from the newly revamped Team Explorer, to the version control & build improvements. Want to work offline seamlessly? Wish merging happened less frequently & was simpler when it did? How about find work items faster? Join us to see all this and more.

About the Speaker
Randy Pagels is a Sr. Developer Technology Specialist and a Developer Platform and Evangelism tools team member covering the Heartland District (MI, OH, KY, TN) for Microsoft. His expertise includes Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, Test Professional, and Lab Management products. He educates the customer to maximize their ALM tools by explaining best practices, installation, and configuration through presentations, workshops, or quick starts. Prior to Microsoft he worked for 16 years as a developer in the IT area and has designed and developed many .Net web applications using agile methodologies. Randy is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) on Team Foundation Server. For further resource information, please refer to his website teamsystemcafe.net.

Next meeting January 19th instead of January 5th

Due to the holiday schedule and CodeMash next week, this month's regular scheduled meeting will not be on January 5th but will be on January 19 at the office of Improving Enterprises. I will put the speaker and topic info up next week.

I’m looking forward to great year with this group in 2012.

Regards,
Daniel Gray.

Need Help: COALMG Leader

Both Alexei and I enjoy working on the COALMG group. However, within the last few months, both of us took on new roles in our careers and struggle to find the time to line up speakers and keep things running smoothly.

To that end, we would like to open up COALMG to new leadership. Alexei and I would still remain involved (as well as Brian Prince) from a "board"/guidance perspective but we want someone to really drive: schedule strong presenters, question the current setup, drive membership, sponsors, etc.

We have a great following and there's tons of potential. COALMG is a fantastic opportunity for someone with energy, a passion for great software and a desire to get involved in the community.

We look forward to hearing from you! If you're interested, shoot me an email at jeff dot hunsaker at gmail.

November Meeting Announcement: Visual Studio 2011 – Early Introduction

Special Announcement
This month, we're moving the time and place (same date/day) to Thursday November 3rd 11:30am-1pm at Cardinal Solutions: 401 N. Front St. Suite 210 Columbus, OH 43215. You can park in Nationwide's "Lot C" parking lot and get your ticket validated at the meeting. Parking directions/map. Watch out for 670 ramp closings. :(

Live Meeting Link
Topic: Early Introduction to Visual Studio 2011
Join us as we dive head first into the latest technology preview of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2011. We'll cover the basics but drill down on improvements in the testing experience.

Sponsor: Cardinal Solutions Group
Cardinal will host as well as provide lunch for the meeting.

Bio:
Jeff Hunsaker is the Director of Client Services for Cardinal Solutions Group in their Columbus, Ohio office. He is a ALM/Visual Studio Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a certified Scrum Master and co-founder of the Central Ohio Application Lifecycle Management Group (COALMG http://www.coalmg.org/). Jeff assists clients with architecting and developing custom Microsoft applications, Team Foundation Server (TFS), Azure/Online Services and Microsoft Business Intelligence (MSBI) solutions. Jeff also enjoys optimizing the development process to produce business value and create an effective environment for the team. A frequent presenter at client and regional events, Jeff gets passionate about efficient, resourceful, and elegant technology solutions, agile development techniques and providing value for clients quickly and regularly. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys his family (two boys, wife Lisa), reading, and writing. You can keep up with Jeff by visiting his blog (http://www.jeffreyhunsaker.com/) or on Twitter at @jeffhunsaker.

May Meeting Announcement: Missing Pieces: The Road from Agile Enthusiast to Agile Team Member

Missing Pieces: The Road from Agile Enthusiast to Agile Team Member
Agile mechanics can be installed in weeks or even days, but there is a depth to successful Agile teams that is difficult to capture.  In Missing Pieces, I discuss many of the subtle and overlooked traits, behaviors, and practices of Agile team members by describing high and low points in my Agile journey.  In returning to your budding Agile team you'll see new opportunity to leap beyond sufficient Agile to high performing Agile by recognizing moments for courage, moments for silence, moments for failure and more.

Ryan Cromwell is a Coder, Agile Coach and Microsoft ALM MVP. He has over 10 years of experience as a software engineer, including expertise in next generation interactive applications with Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight. Ryan is committed to the continual improvement of development practices and techniques. His expertise and dedication has brought success to numerous projects, working with Marathon Oil Company, Speedway SuperAmerica LLC, FedEx-Kinkos, Lexis-Nexis, Reynolds & Reynolds, and more. Ryan is co-founder of the Cincy Clean Coders group and has led presentations on effective team development and various topics such as Agile, Scrum, WPF, WCF, Software Patterns, and Team Foundation Server. You can find Ryan at http://blog.cromwellhaus.com and on Twitter as @cromwellryan.

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