A little while ago I posted about the new series that we’ve started – the Manager Tech Talk Video series. We broadcast each episode live on the 2nd Thursday of the month and record it for on-demand access later. We then take the audio and use it to create an episode for our long standing IT Manager Podcast series. This month we did an extended hour long broadcast and split it into 2 recordings which you can access below.

Add the series to your calendar and join us live each month!

In these 2 episodes of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk, Jonathan and I chat with Sam Guckenheimer, the man who wrote the book on Agile and Visual Studio, about how development teams can optimize Application Lifecycle Management, utilize advanced methods to deliver higher-value software faster, and systematically eliminate waste and inefficiency throughout the entire development lifecycle.

We discuss concepts from Sam’s latest book, Agile Software Engineering with Visual Studio: From Concept to Continuous Feedback including:

• Empowering and engaging multidisciplinary self-managing teams
• Overcoming causes of software waste, missed schedules, and poor quality
• Reengineering development to remove overhead: make individuals more productive and empower high-performance teams

And in case you’re thinking that this only applies to software development teams and doesn’t apply to you because you deal with the networks and infrastructure, think again! We also talk about how Agile concepts can be applied to other areas outside of development projects.

Additional resources:

• ALM Webcast Series: Microsoft invites you to participate in a five part webcast series designed to help you explore opportunities to minimize development costs within tight timelines while remaining agile throughout software development and test cycles.
• Managing Complexity with Process, People, and Tools: Development teams are constantly challenged to deliver highly secure, quality software in an environment of growing business demand and quick time-to-market. Development managers are taking a more holistic approach to software development to help create an efficient and effective development process.
• Delivering High Quality Software Through Agile: Delivering high quality software is a risky undertaking. Development and Quality Assurance managers are in a tight partnership over the war against software bugs. Software quality issues not only delay the time to market for a solution while increasing costs, but they also delay the subsequent benefits to the business.
• Unify Your ALM Platform: A shared collaboration infrastructure based on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server can help teams break down barriers and deliver value to the customer while leveraging earlier tool investments.
• Magic Quadrant for Integrated Software Quality Suites: See why Microsoft and its application lifecycle management platform are viewed as “Visionary” in this Gartner report.

Part 1 

Part 2

These episodes are also available as a podcast. 

Part 1: Listen Now | Download as MP3

Part 2: Listen Now | Download as MP3

Subscribe to the audio podcast series (so you don't miss an episode) :

The Align IT program is dedicated to keeping IT leaders informed about what really matters in business and technology. We do that through in-person events, web casts, our blog, podcasts and videos. You can find more information about the Align IT program at www.alignit.ca.

Comments, suggestions and ideas for future topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Align IT program feedback alias at alignit@microsoft.com.