SNESCM

Scandinavian Network of Excellence
in
Software Configuration Management

OpenSpaces: Open Spaces is a facilitation method that is particularly suited for situations where a groups of people work very intensely with a problem and where there is a lot of dialogue and discussions (as opposed to a "simple" presentation). Sometimes it is used to brainstorm "solutions" to complex problems, sometimes it is used as a more interactive and effective way of "teaching" (keeping an "open mind" to the input/feedback from the "students").

We have three Open Spaces scheduled (see below) but if you have a topic that you want to organize an Open Space around, contact me (lars.bendix@cs.lth.se) and I will put it on. The Open Spaces will run in parallel just after the lunch break and are introduce just before the lunch break. They will take place in rooms close to the conference room.

Proposals:

Change management: configuration control versus change control (Thomas Karlkvist)
In large product organizations there is a distinct difference in the needs for and the definition of a change management process at the Product Data Maintenance (PDM) level, versus the need for change management in the development organization. The PDM organization need to manage changes in the product to achieve an economically based overall planning of the product life cycle. This pertains to doing evaluations and quantifications on a feature level that often comprises changes in many different product parts. On the other hand, the individual developers and development teams have a need to focus on technical configuration control for their separate parts of the product. This session aims to bring forward the awareness of these different needs.

Getting to the essentials of CM - what are our core tasks? (Otto Vinter)
Persons working professionally with CM in companies perform many functions. E.g: maintaining consistency of builds and releases; managing the bug database; providing measurements and status; managing the change process; performing quality assurance and control.
The CM literature and the CMMI framework list some mandatory CM functions. However, in your practice you may have taken on many functions just because you have had previous experiences with them – and no one else takes responsibility for them; or the project manager has taken over some functions that you feel should have been handled by a professional CM person (you).
This Open Space intends to explore all these functions in order extract the essential core CM functions, for which no other specialist than a CM person should be responsible for. We will discuss the issues that you find important in your daily operations, and which you think are the core CM deliverables in the software development value chain.

Branching h?st?ry (Marc Girod)
The past is a pest.
Branches bear the fruits. The worm is in merging back.
Just climb the tree and deliver in-place!