One of the folks on my team, Clint Edmonson, is running a series of events in our North Central District (here's a definition of that term). I am getting this post out a bit late for him – at least for my home-town event, which happened yesterday in St. Louis to a capacity crowd. The room was *full* and the initial feedback has been really great.

Although I missed getting a helpful post out for St. Louis, there is still time to attend the events in Overland Park, KS on February 4th and in Bloomington, MN on February 23rd, both in the local Microsoft office.

Why would you care to attend this event? Well Clint and his colleagues will be delivering three great sessions on on developing as a team, modern design approaches such as model-driven development, and how to turn requirements into design and design into code. Here's the summary of the event and the sessions.

Drive Your Development with Visual Studio 2010
Visual Studio 2010 is the most comprehensive suite of application development tools a software team could ever wish for. But its dazzling array of features can be daunting to say the least. Whether you’re building custom line-of-business applications or the next killer viral internet app you need to understand what’s under the hood and how your team can take advantage of its broad capabilities. Join a team of industry experts for a hands-on discussion of proven techniques for getting the most power and mileage out of this incredible product.

Session 1: Drive Your Process
In our first session we will examine what it takes to establish and support a world class development team using Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010. We will discuss what makes a team great and how to choose a software development methodology to ensure repeatable results. We will reveal best practices to help teams perform at world class levels using Visual Studio 2010.

Session 2: Drive Your Design
In this session, we will take a look at role of design in modern development teams. We will discuss strategies for choosing the right level of design based on the complexity of your projects and best practices for ensuring designs are fully realized. We will also provide an overview of the new UML features provided in Visual Studio 2010 that support model driven development.

Session 3: Drive Your Code
In our last session, we will take a look at how it all comes together. We will walk through the process of turning requirements and designs into code and highlight the powerful tools provided in Visual Studio 2010 to help you create what you can imagine, build on the strengths of your team, and open up new possibilities.

If you live in the Kansas City or Twin Cities areas, try to attend these events. Early buzz is quite good, and you won't be disappointed!