sneSCM

Scandinavian Network of Excellence
in
Software Configuration Management

Time: Wednesday, September 18th, 2019, 15:30-16:30.

Place: Softhouse's facilities in Stormgatan 14, Malmö.

Title: SCM in 90 minutes

Host: Lars Bendix - Computer Science, Lund University

In a recent study, it was found that SCM is in the top three of topics/skills most important in the software industry. Unfortunately the same study also finds that SCM is by far the topic/skill where there is the largest gap between what is needed in industry and what is taught at universities.

Lund University is one of only a couple of universities in the world that has a dedicated full-time course (200 hours) on SCM - and we also give a smaller introductory course (28 hours) around Europe.

The full-time course is intended for students who want to make SCM a larger or smaller part of their future career. They might become your future colleague - or jump in as configuration manager when you leave for a better job. They might also "just" become the "SCM-knowledgable person" that can fix SCM-matters for a team in case it is needed.
The introductory course, on the other hand, has more modest goals and aims at giving students an awareness of what SCM is and why it is needed. These students might become your company's future employees (or even project managers) and you might find it helpful if they can understand the "SCM-lingo" you speak and are able to follow the simple SCM-processes you try to implement and enforce.

However, even the short course seems to be too much for most universities if they have to leave their present state of teaching zero SCM. For them a more pragmatic (first?) step forward would be one two-hour (90 min) lecture plus some reading material (like a chapter in a book) for their students. This is the setup that will be run later this year at universities in Oslo and Copenhagen.

In such a short time you have to be extremely careful in picking topics: which parts of SCM should the students know about, which (few) parts should they be able to carry out (apply), and which (many) parts of SCM should be left out (or for self-studies)? I have a plan for how to spend my 90 minutes and on what - and why. Now I would like to put that plan to the test with SCM experts - before subjecting innocent students to it.