Agile SCM

9:30 - 10:00

Registration Tea/Coffee

10:00 - 10:10

Introduction - Robert Cowham, CMSG Chair

10:10 - 10:55

The Agile Difference, Michael Azoff, The Butler Group

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This presentation theme asks what the Agile Difference is and whether it will last. The question of culture is a crucial one – Agile values include a wider involvement of the business and this is where the potential for cultural clashes may occur. Thus the particular aspects of Agile that are radically different from traditional practices are identified and whether this is a change that businesses are ready to accept is examined. The impediments for Agile adoption and possible solutions are examined. The melding of Agile with Application Lifecycle Management is also a question of culture where traditional approaches may clash with a lightweight Agile approach. A view is given of what ALM is looking like in an Agile environment, taking into account the changing nature of ALM solutions in the market.
 

10:55 - 11:25

11:25 - 12:10

SCM and Agile Practices within Microsoft Developer Division, Richard Erwin, Developer Tools Technical Specialist, Microsoft

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This presentation looks at the agile development processes in Microsoft's product development 'feature crews', and how they support and manage this with their SCCM toolsets.

12:10 - 12:55

Towards Visualizations of Configuration Management, Andrew Tunnicliffe, London Underground

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Communication is key to managing risk in the agile delivery of systems. The natural tension between the requirements for formal recording of Configuration data (in a CM tool) often contrasts the need to modify critical artefacts undergoing development and test, typically software but also, significantly, data items. Change and configuration management control processes provide structures to oversee the development and delivery phases, however, in the real-world change happens late and as a result of unforeseen circumstances. It is at these times where an accessible understanding of the state of configuration, and more importantly the impact of the change, needs to be managed rapidly. For example, should a software update be permitted? What are the consequences if so, what if not? What are the technical, operational, maintenance, end-user/customer impacts?

In large real-world projects, such as the Victoria Line Upgrade (VLU), change happens continuously over a significant period of time, through many phases of delivery and the consequences of error are significant and public, and additionally are subject to serious concerns of health and safety. Clearly, a number of different models (functional, physical, organizational etc) would be The obvious solution, however, traditional config data ("as built") is seldom organized in ways other than physical decompositions, and is not intended for purposes other than recording a final state. This paper outlines the needs for communication between the key stakeholder representatives, and acknowledging the different needs and purposes of configuration information, and how change is communicated. Context is provided by an illustration of a configuration visualisation developed for the VLU, highlighting the benefits and also the shortcomings, highlighting the need for greater consideration in order to deliver agility whilst managing risk.

12:55 - 14:10

14:10 - 14:55

All Things to All Men: Keeping it simple?, Finbarr Joy, Upco

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One of the key principles of agile relates to the imperative to 'keep it simple'. For the SCM practitioner it may be a struggle to achieve this, however, when embedded in an enterprise endeavouring to work with distributed teams, offshore development, SOA, Web 2.0, and whatever vendor applications suites are the current flavour of the month. In this context, the number of 'edge cases' that diverge from the standard patterns for version control, build, deploy and release management can result in an environment that is anything but agile.

This session explores a pattern for Agile SCM that begins with the core agile practice of continuous integration and presents how it can be applied to support the diversity of all of the above scenarios while retaining simplicity, consistency and control through a repeatable build 'templating' technique that integrates version control, change control, test automation, and issue management through a central process.
 

14:55 - 15:25

15:25 - 16:10

SCM – the Agile Keystone, Sean Cody, Global Markets Architecture, Bank of America

SCM is perhaps the fundamental component of any software development framework – without an effective configuration management approach, chaos will invariably ensue. Many argue that Agile software development practices place new demands on SCM, but taken from another point of view it could be posited that Agile SCM simply distils fundamental principles of SCM that have been around since the first days of version control and highlights their true importance. This talk will cover the place of SCM in an Agile project both in terms of the role it plays for the Agile team and the function it performs when used in conjunction with other tools.
 

15:10 - 16:30

Q&A plus Wrap-up

16:30

Close