The feedback from the course was fantastic:

“This course has been the most insightful two days of my SharePoint career”

“Easily one of the best courses I’ve been to and has left me wanting more!”

“Had a great couple of days at #SPIAUK loving IBIS”

“The content covered was about the things technically focussed peeps miss..”

and we are looking foreward to running it again, in fact it is going to take place in only a few weeks time Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd February 2011.

There are still a few spaces left and if you user the – I missed the announcement, am I “Too Late” discount code you get a massive 15% discount.

The Master Class

Most people understand that deploying SharePoint is much more than getting it installed. Despite this, current SharePoint governance documentation abounds in service delivery aspects. However, just because your system is rock solid, stable, well documented and governed through good process, there is absolutely no guarantee of success. Similarly, if Information Architecture for SharePoint was as easy as putting together lists, libraries and metadata the right way, then why doesn’t Microsoft publish the obvious best practices?

In fact, the secret to a successful SharePoint project is an area that the governance documentation barely touches.
This master class pinpoints the critical success factors for SharePoint governance and Information Architecture and rectifies this blind spot. Based upon content provided by Paul Culmsee (Seven Sigma) which takes an ironic and subversive take on how SharePoint governance really works within organisations, while presenting a model and the tools necessary to get it right.

Drawing on inspiration from many diverse sources, disciplines and case studies, Paul Culmsee has distilled in this Master Class the “what” and “how” of governance down to a simple and accessible, yet rigorous and comprehensive set of tools and methods, that organisations large and small can utilise to achieve the level of commitment required to see SharePoint become successful.

In this Master Class we aim to articulate :

• Present SharePoint governance and Information Architecture in a new light – focus on the “blind spots” where the current published material is inadequate
• Cover lessons learned from Paul’s non IT work as a facilitator and sensemaker in complex large scale projects
• Examine the latest trends in the information landscape for industry and government and review studies that inform governance and Information Architecture efforts

• Present an alternative approach to business-as-usual SharePoint governance planning that focuses on real collaboration
• Provide quality information that is rigorous yet accessible, entertaining and interesting

Master class outcomes:

• Understand the SharePoint governance lens beyond an IT service delivery focus
• Develop your ‘wicked problem’ radar and apply appropriate governance practices, tools and techniques accordingly
• Learn how to align SharePoint projects to broad organisational goals, avoid chasing platitudes and ensure that the problem being solved is the right problem
• Learn how to account for cognitive bias and utilise tools and techniques that help stakeholders align to a common vision

• Understand the relationship between governance and assurance, why both are needed and how they affect innovation and user engagement
• Understand the underlying, often hidden forces of organisational chaos that underpins projects like SharePoint
• Understand the key challenges and opportunities that SharePoint presents for Information Architecture
• Learn how to document your information architecture
• Practical knowledge: Add lots more tools to your governance and IA toolkit!

SamePage Alliance

SEVEN SIGMA BUSINESS SOLUTIONS and 21APPS today have announced the formulation of the SAMEPAGE ALLIANCE – A strategic partnership and collaboration initiative that will provide customers around the world with the combined benefits of two uniquely skilled organisation.

I first met Paul Culmsee in San Diego in 2008, although we failed to see each others sessions, I was doing Test Driven and Agile SharePoint development sessions, while Paul was doing something called ‘Wicked Problems’, we managed to find time to chat and share a few pints, almost immediately we found that we had a common grounding in what we were trying to promote and the challenges we encountered.

Over time we continued to develop our respective areas of expertise but always found, during many chats across the globe, we were looking at different views of the same problems. Paul introduced me to Jeff Conklin and the art of Dialog Mapping, which I immediately booked myself onto the course and continue to use, and develop my skills, to this day.

The formation of the SamePage Alliance has taken a while to get off the ground. Initial discussions focused on a loose arrangement where we would collaborate on ideas, however for things to really get focus you need a reason for them to be.  The growth and aspirations at 21apps and the recent move into training for Seven Sigma, along with the conversation we have had regarding the need for specific products allowed us to give the alliance the time and focus it deserved.

About the SamePage Alliance

Extract from the official announcement at www.samepage.co

Both SEVEN SIGMA and 21APPS are thought leaders in their respective competencies and contribute to the broader community knowledge through their consulting, writing, speaking and product offerings. Both organisations have recognised SharePoint experts and deep thinking approaches which they share through SharePoint conferences worldwide.

“We are very excited to work with 21apps,” said Paul Culmsee, Director, Seven Sigma Business Solutions. “Teaming up with 21apps is an exciting development for our company. This will enable us to tap into each other’s resources thereby enabling our companies to better service our clients.”

“We have been considering this Alliance for a while now. This alliance exemplifies our dedication to providing clients with the best of what both our companies can offer globally.” states Andrew Woodward, Founder and CEO, 21apps.

“I am very excited to be joining 21apps at this time, the opportunity to collaborate with Seven Sigma and bring our combined experience and knowledge to our customers through workshops, training and consultancy will be fantastic.” says Ant Clay, Chief Strategy Officer, 21apps.

www.sevensigma.com.au
www.samepage.co

We are launching the alliance by welcoming Paul Culmsee to London to run his SharePoint 2010 Governance and Information Architecture Masterclass.

SharePoint 2010 Governance and Information Architecture Masterclass

A 2 day workshop, in London, UK, on the 22th and 23th of November, run by Paul Culmsee with Andrew Woodward as proctor, covering SharePoint Governance f-Laws and Information Architecture. This course is perfectly suited to Business Analysts, Project and Program Managers, Enterprise and Information Architects, IT Managers and those in strategic roles that have to bridge the gap between organisational aspirations and the effective delivery of SharePoint solutions.

If you have seen Paul speak or read his blog, www.cleverworkarounds.com you will know just how good this workshop is, but don’t take our word for it, this is what people have been saying about Pauls workshops:

Finally.. after 12 years in the IT industry a course which covers some of the fundamental issues governing project success.  This course is a real eye opener and a must for any IT professional involved in project planning and delivery.
Stephen McWilliams Solutions Architect, Auckland SWS WCM Team

If you think that the way to a successful SharePoint implementation is applying more best practices and governance to the project, I got the perfect course to recommend you. Through the course, Paul explains why best practices and governance is not the end all of SharePoint implementations and strictly following them might be detrimental to the implementation. The course (in my view) is also beneficial to people who are involved in SharePoint implementations other than Information Architects, as it succinctly points out the cognitive bias each member brings to the project and why the way forward is for everyone to acknowledge and have a shared understanding of the issues that plague SharePoint implementations.
Jeff Chionn, Datacom

Registration for the event opens on Monday 27th  September, and we are giving a great discount to the first five people to register – so be sure to register early.

Please email myself, andrew@21apps.com, if you would like to received information about the course.

Disclaimer:  I don’t work for Mindsharp or Combined Knowledge, but I do guest teach the developer course.

Had a great week attending Combined Knowledge’s first public beta of the SharePoint 2010 developer course,  in fact it was the first running of this course anywhere in the world!

The course was held in what I think is a great venue,  the board room in Ullesthorpe – I really like teaching here as this is a permanent setup so you know you have everything you need including lots of white boards << these are essential.  This week was slightly different on the food front as they were into the December Xmas menu,  no longer did we get the famous ‘Rice and Chips’ that Todd Bleeker is so keen on – instead we got a full choice from the bar menu,  I recommend the chicken and warm bacon salad starter.

Back to the course; you might be asking  ‘Why this course and not the Ignite Training?’ 

I have to say I am very impressed with Microsoft in the amount of information and training being provided this early in the delivery cycle,  if you compare this to what we had for 2007 and even worse what we didn’t have in 2003 you will know that they have really put the effort in.

So why did I not do the Ignite Training?  – Simple answer could be I missed the boat; and this is not untrue (double negative to make it sound better :S), but the real answer is that I am planning to guest teach this course for Combined Knowledge and it is a great way for me to feedback on what does/doesn’t work from an attendee’s perspective and help shape the course that people will get over the coming years  (the 2003 course is still being taught, so anything fixed now has a long time to live).

The course was being taught by Gary Yeoman,  long time trainer with Combined Knowledge and real world consultant when not training.  Attending the course were myself,  James Fisk, Adrian, David, Ian, Stephan (from Switzerland), Rehan and Ruth – plus we had the honour of having Todd Bleeker (the course author) taking a very active role throughout the week.

Big Topic or Lots of Topics

SharePoint in 2007 was a big product,  sure Windows SharePoint Services (WSS V3) wasn’t quite as big as MOSS but from a developers perspective there was a lot to cover.  Things in 2010 just get bigger.   To quote Todd  (and it may not have been word for word)

Custom Field types were probably the hardest thing you had to do in SharePoint 2007.  In 2010 there are lots of things that are more complicated.  however the great tools in Visual Studio 2010 help here a lot!

What I’m trying to say is we had a lot to cover and Gary was adopting a JIT based approach to some of the slides

If you skip the sleeping!

There are 24hours in a day (8 for work, 8 for sleep and 8 for yourself).  Based on this schedule there really is no way that there would be a beta SharePoint 2010 developer course with the depth of information and labs that people expect of a Combined Knowledge course for people to attend.   So how was this solved?

Well if your Todd Bleeker you make the call that you can adopt the following pattern 6 x 1/2 hour sleep and 21 hours work (per day, everyday)!   Yes Todd has been doing the Uberman sleep pattern (a form of polyphasic sleep) for the past 17 weeks – and he is amazingly still sane and took a very active role during the week.  Although on one occasion we returned after a break to see a pair of feet sticking out from under a desk which were attached to Todd fitting in one of his 1/2 hour sleeps! 

It was suggested at the start of the course that every student should also adopt this if they were to be able to get through the content we wanted to cover,  thankfully other attendees like to have some ‘down’ time to recuperate. 

‘Down’ time == ‘SharePint’ 

The Course

Being a beta course, and the first real proper teach ever, and based on the Beta 2 release that only dropped a few weeks ago it was expected that the labs would be a little rough and ready.   This couldn’t have been more wrong! The new format adopted with microlabs,improved consistency and the result of many hour of hard work has paid off in droves.  

We were all experienced SharePoint 2007 developers so we could skip any of the usual ‘What’s an SPWeb’ type discussion and head straight into some deep dives.

The course covered a lot of detail including

• - Powershell and how to extend it
• - A tour of VS2010 and the new SharePoint tools
• - Extending VS2010
• - Event Models – with focus on what’s new and improved
• - Deployment scenarios
• - Sandboxed and Farm Solutions
• - Workflow
• - SharePoint Designer <<   YES SharePoint Designer is really a useful dev tool in 2010
• - Developer Dashboard
• - and many many more

What stood out?

In truth SharePoint 2010 was the real star, including the great new tools in VS2010 (although the very poor story around Unit Testing is tainting my views here).

What I did get at the end of the course was a feeling that I just want to get out and start teaching it,  to start sharing the great new things that caused me so many long days in the past.  

I am looking forward to when I can run my first class and spend time working through your ideas, problems and solutions.

I’m excited about developing for SharePoint 2010. 

If I can offer one tip for now,   ‘always start with a Sandboxed solution first’

Along the way almost everyone I talked to understands the basic idea that the earlier in the cycle you find a defect the cheaper and easier it is to fix, and from this most (if not all) agree that Unit Testing is one of the most cost effective ways to catch these defects. The problem is, it appears, developers are lazy; they understand they should do it they just never get around to it – ‘perhaps on the next project’.

As part of my own development I like to work with, be trained by or just hang with people that I see as having reached a higher level of knowledge and skill than me in a particular field. You could say a greater Mastery of the subject. One area that I am very passionate about, many may have seen some great interviews on the subject, is Test Driven Development (TDD). TDD is more than just doing Unit Testing; it is a technique that once you understand and are willing to invest time in helps you to become a better developer.

I have been doing TDD, although not on every project (sadly), for about 2 years and have shared the knowledge I have gained through white papers, blogs and talking at conferences. In trying to lead the way in my area of expertise, SharePoint, I felt that I was missing something. I had yet to reach a place where I felt that I had mastered the art, where I had moved into the phase of challenging myself to do more than just the practice of TDD.

As part of my work with Typemock, the only solution of working with SharePoint’s sealed API, I found that these guys really did get it, they had the battle scars and were practicing what they preached, and they were challenging themselves to do it different, better. Roy Osherove is the Chief Architect at Typemock and I have seen him speak at conferences in a way that was engaging and thought provoking. The opportunity therefore to be able to spend 5 days with Roy doing a TDD Master Class was one that I could not miss.

I’m not going to do the, on day 1 we did this, on day two we did this, as I think that Sara (fellow attendee) has covered this quite well in her post. Instead I will talk about how the course was much more than a lesson in Test Driven Development; we paired up to cover all of the practices looking at the basics of unit testing frameworks (Nunit, MSTest), understanding isolation frameworks (Moq, Rhino Mocks, Typemock Isolator) and how they all look to solve the same issues whilst using slightly different syntax. We looked at how the techniques around TDD have evolved over time, and the how the tools have really moved on significantly in recent years making the barrier to entry and the ability to create readable and maintainable code possible. We looked at techniques, like the daily Kata, that will help perfect the practices, and discussed the ideas of Shu -Ha -Ri where the student moves from the fundamental techniques, to finding new ways and challenging tradition and then onto surpass the teacher and ultimate mastery.

I liked the way Roy questioned the idea that the lazy coder was in fact the one looking to do it as easily as possible, the one who knew all of the keyboard short cuts, the one with all the Live Templates in ReSharper. The Lazy code is really the one who gets the job done well, with the least amount of effort – unlike the average developer, who I initially thought of as lazy, who just doesn’t see development as a craft but more a way to pay the bills.

My view that learning from someone, who is at a higher level of knowledge and understanding has been reaffirmed. The same principles should apply to you, when you look at training and work, ensure that the person teaching you is someone you admire, someone who you feel has the level of knowledge and experience that you aspire to.

Having attended Roy’s TDD Master Class I can say that my knowledge has been enhanced, the core values have been reaffirmed and I am now in a much better place with regards my own capability, but more importantly my own ability to help others.

So the question is should you attend Roy’s TDD Master Class?

If you want to really Master the Art of Test Driven Development then definitely.