project should be set up to support a changing scope and changing process - encourage that change and keep track of the artifacts as they pass through the changing process. It's a difficult challenge, but one worth taking on.
6- Low cost Administration
Agile projects are about small teams working on applications, one iteration at a time. These teams rarely are greater than 15 members in size. Therefore, most agile projects are not going to have dedicated SCM Managers assigned to the project. If you don't have a resource dedicated to administering the SCM solution, the solution itself must be somewhat simple and inexpensive to maintain.
Agile projects have little tolerance for spending limited resources on administrative tasks that don't directly contribute to working code. The agile community is constantly looking to focus it's limited resources on productive development of working code, so if they can accomplish that while spending less on administering their SCM solution, they'll do that. When implementing your SCM solution, consider the cost of administration over time to you and to the development team. It might be a deciding factor.
Conclusion
When I step away and look at an ideal agile SCM solution from a high level perspective, I see a solution that supports the development process, embraces change to the process while keeping track of changes to the project artifacts. It provides tools and resources that allow the developer to maintain application configuration during the development process as well as being able to document that configuration once development is finished.
Traditional SCM typically approaches the development group from a more "controlling" perspective, while agile SCM really attempts to understand the needs of the development group and marrying those needs in a solution that also satisfies the needs of the SCM Manager. Agendas can sometimes get pitted against one another, but squint just a little and those agendas should begin to appear headed for common goals such as producing quality software that meets the needs of the business, on time and on budget, while still maintaining well understood and persistent application configuration.
Next month in Agile SCM, Steve Berczuk will describe patterns that help with building an Agile SCM Environment.
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About the author
Brad Appleton is a software CM/ALM solution architect and lean/agile development champion at a large telecommunications company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply lean/agile development and CM/ALM practices and tools. He is coauthor of the bookSoftware Configuration Management Patterns, a columnist in The CM Journal and The Agile Journal at CMCrossroads.com, and a former section editor for The C++ Report. You can read Brad's blog at blog.bradapp.net.
About the author
Steve Berczuk is an engineer and ScrumMaster at Humedica where he's helping to build next-generation SaaS-based clinical informatics applications. The author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software. He has an M.S. in operations research from Stanford University and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and is a certified, practicing ScrumMaster. Contact Steve at steve@berczuk.com or visit berczuk.com and follow his blog at blog.berczuk.com.
About the author
Steve Konieczka is President and Chief Operating Officer of SCM Labs, a leading Software Configuration Management solutions provider. An IT consultant for fourteen years, Steve understands the challenges IT organizations face in change management. He has helped shape companies’ methodologies for creating and implementing effective SCM solutions for local and national clients. Steve is a member of Young Entrepreneurs Organization and serves on the board of the Association for Configuration and Data Management (ACDM). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Colorado State University. You can reach Steve at steve@scmlabs.com.
