Agile Configuration Management Environments

• comes from prohibitive build-times, or long testing-cycles that force development to either freeze or branch the code-base for significant periods of time while waiting for integration/build/test activities to complete.

Putting it All Together: Opening, Middle Game, and End Game The bottom line is that, to promote and sustain agility, SCM processes and tools must eliminate bottlenecks in feedback cycles by:

• Easing up on rigid front-end controls,

• Coordinating and streamlining development changes and communication, and …

• Automating back-end integration/build/test activities, increasing their frequency, and incorporating them into daily development tasks

References

• [1] Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration , by Stephen P. Berczuk and Brad Appleton ; Addison-Wesley, November 2002.
• [2]  Agility from Agile Software Development Ecosystems, by Alistair Cockburn and James Highsmith; Addison-Wesley, March 2002
• [3] Agile Software Development: The People Factor, by Jim Highsmith and Alistair Cockburn; IEEE Computer: November 2001 (Vol. 31, No. 11), pp. 131-133
• [4] Retiring Lifecycle Dinosaurs , by Jim Highsmith; Software Test and Quality Engineering Magazine (STQE), July/August 2000 (Vol. 2, No. 4)
• [5] Software is not a Product, by Phillip Armour; Column “ The Business of Software ” Communications of the ACM August 2000 (Vol. 43, No. 8)
• [6] What Is Agile Software Development?, by Jim Highsmith; Crosstalk – the Journal of Software Defense Engineering (special issue on Agile Software Development), Vol. 15, No. 10, pp. 4-9
• [7]  The Agile Manifesto , also appearing in Chapter 1: Agile Practices , pp. 3-11 of Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices , by Robert C. Martin; Addison-Wesley, November 2002
• [8]  The New Methodology , by Martin Fowler ; created July 2000, revised April 2003; also published in abridged form as “Put your Process on a Diet” , Software Development Magazine ; December 2000 (Vol. 8, No. 12)
• [9]  Agile Software Development: The Business of Innovation, by Jim Highsmith and Alistair Cockburn; IEEE Computer: September 2001 (Vol. 31, No. 9), pp. 120-122
• [10] Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBoK) , Chapter 7: Software Configuration Management , pp. 7.1-7.17; Version 1.00, May 2001
• [11]Configuration Management Principles and Practices , by Anne Mette Jonassen Hass, Addison-Wesley, December 2002, Chapter 18, pp.207-224 and Appendix C: Agile SCM, pp. 343-348 .

Sidebar: Manifesto for Agile Software Development [7]