Visual Studio ALM MVP of the Year 2011

For some reason this year some of my peers decided to vote for me as a contender for Visual Studio ALM MVP of the year. I am not sure what I did to deserve this, but a number of people have commented that I have a rather useful blog.

I feel wholly unworthy to join the ranks of previous winners:

• Ed Blankenship (2010) 
• Martin Woodward (2009) 

Thank you to everyone who voted regardless of who you voted for. If there was a prize for the best group of MVP’s then the Visual Studio ALM MVP would be a clear winner, as would the product group of product groups that is Visual Studio ALM Group. To use a phrase that I have learned since moving to Seattle and probably use too much: you guys are all just awesome.

I have tried my best in the last year to document not only every problem that I have had with Team Foundation Server (TFS), but also to document as many of the things I am doing as possible. I have taken some of Adam Cogan’s rules to heart and when a customer asks me a question I always blog the answer and send them a link.

This allows both my blog and my understanding of TFS to grow while creating a useful bank of content. The idea is that if one customer asks, all benefit. I try, when writing for my blog, to capture both the essence and the context for a problem being solved. This allows more people to benefit as they do not need to understand the specifics of an environment to gain value.

I have a number of goals for this year that I think will help increase value in the community:

• persuade my new colleagues at Northwest Cadence to do more blogging  (Steve, Jeff, Shad and Rennie)
• Rangers Project – TFS Iteration Automation  with Willy-Peter Schaub  , Bill Essary, Martin Hinshelwood  , Mike Fourie  , Jeff Bramwell  and Brian Blackman 
• Write a book on the Team Foundation Server API with Willy-Peter Schaub  , Mike Fourie  and Jeff Bramwell 
• write more useful blog posts

I do not think that these things are beyond the realms of do-ability, but we will see…