This morning Microsoft started the Tech·Ed 2011 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. They showcase a broad array of technology during the Keynote Address. If you missed it live, the video is available to watch on-demand now here. Even if you cannot attend in person the conference, there are no reasons why you cannot participate remotely. I am very excited to announce that Microsoft will bring the Tech·Ed 2011 Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) discussions to you with a live broadcast and twitter stream to handle incoming questions.

As a reader of this blog, I am inviting you to remotely participate in the two Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions that I will lead.

BOF09-DEV Is Scrum better for My Projects?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal
Wednesday, May 18 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B209
Have you thought about, or are you using Scrum as a project management framework for agile software development? Jump start your learning or, if you’re a Scrum veteran, share what you have learned with fellow developers. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses, best practices, pitfalls, and more with in this session.

BOF17-DEV Agile Development: Can it Work for Everyone?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal and Phil Japikse
Thursday May 19 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Room: B209
As software developers, engineers, and craftsmen, we are focusing more and more on improving the code that we write, shifting from mere Delivery to Code Elegance. But our customers typically want the lowest cost, fastest to market option. Whether you are struggling with this issue or your team has found the perfect solution, join us to learn (and to share) how to manage this balance.

Use the following link to view the live broadcast of my sessions. Along side the live broadcast there will be a Twitter widget displaying all the inbound tweets during the session. Submit your questions or comments which will be read to the session participants using the hashtags #bofdev. Anyone can submit a question or comment using Twitter during a session. Simply include the hashtag #bofdev in your tweet

Follow @techedbof on Twitter for more information and up-to-the-minute updates on the Birds of a Feather sessions at Tech·Ed.

Are you attending Microsoft Tech·Ed 2011 conference next week in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia? Please, do not missed this great session featuring Urban Turtle.

DEV271-INT Would You, Could You with TFS
Speaker: Richard Hundhausen
Thursday, May 19 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B301
You’re considering Team Foundation Server, or perhaps you have already deployed it. You think you know what it is capable of, but do you? Microsoft built in many extensibility points which developers have used to build interesting and useful add-ons. These solutions include tools for managing requirements, product and sprint backlogs, work items, and software deployments. In this session, we discuss the partner ecosystem and demonstrate some of these products. See how to go beyond the out-of-the-box capabilities of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server without custom development or going to other ALM platforms.

Furthermore, if you want to learn more about agility, here are two Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions that I will lead.

BOF09-DEV Is Scrum better for My Projects?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal
Wednesday, May 18 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B209
Have you thought about, or are you using Scrum as a project management framework for agile software development? Jump start your learning or, if you’re a Scrum veteran, share what you have learned with fellow developers. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses, best practices, pitfalls, and more with in this session.

BOF17-DEV Agile Development: Can it Work for Everyone?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal and Phil Japikse
Thursday May 19 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Room: B209
As software developers, engineers, and craftsmen, we are focusing more and more on improving the code that we write, shifting from mere Delivery to Code Elegance. But our customers typically want the lowest cost, fastest to market option. Whether you are struggling with this issue or your team has found the perfect solution, join us to learn (and to share) how to manage this balance.

Do not hesitate to say hello, either at these sessions or simply by stopping at the Microsoft booth. I will hang around the Microsoft® Team Foundation Server 2010 demo station during the week.

Tuesday April 12th marked Visual Studio 2010′s first birthday. “It seems not long ago that we had the world-wide launch celebrating the largest developer tool release from Microsoft in many years” said Somasegar about the first year of Visual Studio 2010 in his weblog.

For the Urban Turtle team, the launch of Visual Studio 2010 was an important milestone. Finally, Microsoft was adding the ability to break down work items into hierarchies to Team Foundation Server (TFS). This was a banner feature that made possible the addition of the Scrum process template to the Visual Studio Gallery.

TFS combined with the Scrum process template was the beginning of a solution to turn TFS Agile… but that was not enough. To be truly effective, one must add the right skin through an intuitive web interface that simplifies Agile project management. To meet this need, as a third-party partner, we created Urban Turtle. Today, jointly with Visual Studio 2010, Urban Turtle is the premier Scrum tool for TFS.

As Somasegar states in his weblog:

More than 1,600 Visual Studio 2010 extensions have been submitted to the Visual Studio Gallery, with over 4 million extension downloads by users. Our partners continue to be able to build businesses around Visual Studio, and over the past year, partners have generated over $400 million in revenue from Visual Studio-based extensions.

Urban Turtle is proud to join this exceptional group of partners. We want to go one step further and offer a promotion to all Visual Studio users. During the entire month of April, Urban Turtle is offering a 15% discount to all Visual Studio users who purchase an Urban Turtle license.
You can join in the party and benefit from this discount by entering the ‘Happy B-day VS2010’ promo code at the time of purchase. (http://urbanturtle.com/pricing/)

Early in the design of Urban Turtle, we envision a product so simple to use that one would use it without having to consult documentation. We have partially achieved this goal but we believe we can do better (and, we plan to do better but without violating our motto which is “less is more”). In this connection, stay tuned for the upcoming major upgrade of Urban Turtle (version 4.0).

However, in the meantime, there are training needs that remain to be met. For example, simple questions such as how to install Urban Turtle or how to launch Urban Turtle using Team Web Access are recurring themes. In addition, over time, we discovered that explaining how Urban Turtle support Scrum needs to be more explicit. That’s why we have created a “Quick Start” section on our website.

This getting started section provided short screencasts (2-3 minutes videos) to answer these recurring questions. Because it allows getting “inside” the product to show how small parts work, screencasts work particularly well to a highly-technical product such as Urban Turtle.

On the “Quick Start” page you will find the following screencasts:

• Installing Urban Turtle
• Launching Urban Turtle
• Explaining Scrum in less than 120 seconds
• Grooming the backlog with Urban Turtle
• Planning the Sprint with Urban Turtle
• Tracking day to day work with Urban Turtle

Furthermore, this is where you can download documentation about how to configure Urban Turtle. Learn about the hidden gems that you can access only through the global settings file.

Here is the link to visit the “Quick Start” page: http://urbanturtle.com/quickstart

Hi! My name is Mario Cardinal and I am a team member of Urban Turtle. People here not only helps software development organizations to become places where results, quality of life and pleasure coexist in a sustainable manner but they are also an example of that we propose to our customers. Each of us fulfills this mission in different ways. In my case, I am deeply involved in the Microsoft .Net community. Thus, I was proud last week when I received an email from Microsoft that my MVP-title has been “renewed” for the seventh year in a row. Here is an excerpt from the notification email:

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year.

With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly select group of experts. MVPs share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others. They represent the diversity of today’s technical communities. MVPs are present in over 90 countries, spanning more than 30 languages, and over 90 Microsoft technologies. MVPs share a passion for technology, a willingness to help others, and a commitment to community. These are the qualities that make MVPs exceptional community leaders. MVPs’ efforts enhance people’s lives and contribute to our industry’s success in many ways.

To recognize the contributions they make, MVPs from around the world have the opportunity to meet Microsoft executives, network with peers, and position themselves as technical community leaders. This is accomplished through speaking engagements, one on one customer event participation and technical content development. MVPs also receive early access to technology through a variety of programs offered by Microsoft, which keeps them on the cutting edge of the software and hardware industry.

As a recipient of this year’s Microsoft MVP award, I am proud to join an exceptional group of individuals from around the world who have demonstrated a willingness to reach out, share their technical expertise with others and help individuals maximize their use of technology. Being an MVP has opened many doors for me as a software architect and (sometimes rather pushy) Microsoft customer and the relationships I’ve been able to develop have added a great richness to my life. Thanks Microsoft

Here is another proof that a hosted TFS is an option becoming increasingly affordable and feasible. We recently partnered up with DiscountASP.NET, the leader in Microsoft ASP.NET web hosting and Team Foundation Server (TFS) hosting. Under this partnership, DiscountASP.NET introduces a hosted version of our Urban Turtle solution which is available to their TFS hosting customers as an add-on. In addition, DiscountASP.NET customers get a 10% discount for on-premise Urban Turtle licenses. Customers can get more information on how to redeem this offer through the marketplace section in their control panel.

We launched our hosted TFS service last year and Urban Turtle was a popular request from our customers. We are excited to partner with Urban Turtle for a hosted implementation of their agile management tool.” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET.

At Urban Turtle, we think this is a great solution for teams of all sizes as well as first-time TFS users. Since there is no difference between an on-premise or hosted Urban Turtle solution, the learning curve is significantly reduced.

You can read the Press Release announcing the partnership here

To learn more about this hosted version, visit http://www.discountasp.net/tfs/.

Yesterday, we got a Christmas present from Brian Harry, the Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server and a Microsoft Technical Fellow. He wrote a blog where he praises Urban Turtle.

Urban Turtle is a TFS add-on built by Pyxis Technologies and it provides an awesome Scrum experience for TFS. For 10 years, Pyxis has been at the forefront of the evolving Agile development practices and has been helping companies transform their development process to be more Agile and more effective. We were thrilled when they decided to take that expertise and create a top notch Scrum experience for TFS.

You can read the full story here: Urban Turtle for Scrum and TFS

Our customers know that each month sees another release (8 months, 8 releases). We just release Urban Turtle version 3.7 and, although this is still in beta, this version include built-in support for Scrum for Team System 3.0 process template. We know this is a popular template and we hope you will want to try it and send us suggestions. Do not forget that the best way to make a suggestion is by sharing your idea on our community site. Through the community site, others can vote for your ideas and increase their priority.

http://community.urbanturtle.com/urbanturtle#idea

By design, Urban Turtle can work with any TFS process template, whether it is a widely available template such as Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum or a custom template built specifically for your organization. Out of the box, for compatibility with existing process templates, Urban Turtle supports MSF Agile 5.0 (French and English), Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 and Scrum for Team System 3.0.

Support for TFS process template is based on external configuration mapping files which can be managed by administrators. For instance, adding support for your own process template only required to create a new mapping file and didn’t involve any changes to the application itself. Anybody who understands XML can do this. The XML configuration mapping file is located at:

%TFS INSTALL DIR%\Application Tier\Web Access\Web\UrbanTurtle\configuration\project

Although we have yet to release formal documentation for the mapping files, we do provide support should you wish to customize Urban Turtle to better fit with your current process template.

Yesterday, I presented at the ALM Summit which is an event targeting TFS 2010 and Agile project management using Scrum. My talk was about extending the ALM platform. My recommendation to the attendees was that they should not hesitate to buy 3rd party products (add-on) and extend the Microsoft TFS platform. However, they should make sure that they understand the implication of extending the ALM platform using add-on. In consequence, they should ensure to select according to a list of criteria.

When selecting a 3rd party product, here are some items that should be in your list of criteria:

Features Set

• Does it provides the minimal required features?

Product Vision and Support

• Can I envision a long term relationship?
• Is it a supported product?

Evolution of the ALM platform

• Does it easily migrate to the next version of Visual Studio ALM platform?

TFS Add-on or a TFS connector

• Does it read and write directly in Team Foundation Server (TFS)?
• If not, what are the implications for the warehouse and reporting?

Visual Studio ALM process templates

• Does it work with your ALM templates (Scrum, MSF agile, CMMI, custom)?

Deployment and maintainability

• Which server technology is used?
• Is it compatible with your TFS topology?
• Does it deploy directly on TFS?
• If not, what are the implications for maintainability?
• If so, does it interfere with service updates from Microsoft?
• Which client technology is used?
• WPF or Silverlight or HTML5?

TFS integration

• What are the add-on configuration settings ?
• Does it bypass security?
• Is there an “hidden” operational data store?
• Does it transfer add-on informations to the cube?

Localization

• Is it compatible with the localized edition of TFS?

Why publish this list? Mainly because these are the same questions that we asked ourselves while developing Urban Turtle. Our goal was to eliminate any negative impact. This is why we are convinced that Urban Turtle is one of the best TFS add-on.

The Turtle in the Cloud has reached its destination which is the ALM Summit. Urban Turtle is a gold sponsor at this event which will be targeting TFS and Agile project management using Scrum.

Now that Urban Turtle is available in the cloud, we are proud to confirm that it is even easier to adopt. Our partner, PRAKTIK Hosting, has just updated their hosting offering to provide an option for licensing Urban Turtle on top of TFS 2010. PRAKTIK Hosting is an established company that specializes in Microsoft Visual Studio technologies and is a premier provider of hosted Microsoft Team Foundation Server services.

Why is the cloud of interest. Because it is quick, easy, fast, and increasingly simple. These as well as other obvious trends confirm that offering Urban Turtle as a hosted service makes a lot of sense. Here are some of the major benefits:

• Be up and running now! (in less than a day if you take your time)
• No need to invest in expensive hardware and software
• No need to purchase costly bulk licences
• No need to worry about maintenance, backups, and security
• Developers in different locations are able to collaborate efficiently

PRAKTIK Hosting is offering two plans for agile project management with TFS:

1. TFS Basic with Urban Turtle:  $35 per user/month
2. TFS Standard with Urban Turtle: $70 per user/month (if more than 10 users)

The investment to start using Urban Turtle is really small. PRAKTIK Hosting takes care of everything. They even offer a 30-day free trial licence if you have any doubts.

We think it is a great solution for teams of all sizes and first-time TFS users. One of the cool things is that, for the end user, Urban Turtle as a hosted solution is the same as on-premises, no differences. All you have to do is work on your projects and use Urban Turtle to plan and track them.