Reflections on MMS 2010

After a very busy few weeks  I'm having finally a bit of time to relax and reflect on experiences and feedback from MMS 2010.  Thanks to everyone who attended and who provided us feedback.  I got some great comments both validating work that we're doing and some giving ideas on where we need some improvement.  That feedback was definitely received, and we will be setting our strategies and priorities moving forward based on it.  The two biggest improvement areas I heard are as follows:

Samples, samples, samples

We consistently get asked for more samples.  Concept and documentation is great, but how about sample management packs showing those concepts in action?  I'll start to address this request with the creation of a library of sample management packs.  The first contributions wilt be the samples from my Advanced Monitoring Scenarios session which I should have out there shortly.  After that, we will be making regular contributions both advanced and basic.

More attention to beginner and intermediate

The overall strategy of our Authoring documentation has been to provide a seamless transition for the user as they start with templates and wizards in the Operations Console, move to basic scenarios in the Authoring console, and then progress to more advanced scenarios.  Feedback tells us that we are on the right track on the advanced side but have some work to do for the less advanced users. 

We want to enable basic scenarios without requiring the user to read through an entire section of the Authoring Guide.  I have some ideas of how we can address that, and we will be acting on that goal over the next few weeks and months.  Don’t worry though, advanced users – still plenty of plans for providing more and better information on that end as well.