Our SPA Cambridge Agile Software Configuration Management session last week  - was run by Robert Cowham of Vaccaperna - head of the BCS Configuration Management group.

Here’s a flavour of the questions that came up:

• How to deal with problems configuring environments - develop/build/test/deploy
• How to deal with very frequent changes
• Why not just use Subversion?
  • Not so good for distributed development
  • Some commercial tools have some better features but they are coming under pressure from SVN. Scalability might be better in commercial tools. Integration may also be better with commercial tools.
• How to manage database configurations
• Do any of the tools handle merging (better than others)?
  • Still a problem area
• How to convince non-developers to use CM
  • Some developers still need convincing! Build business case around safety/recovery
• Who should manage CM - the whole team? a specialist?
  • In an agile setting should devolve responsibility to the team as a whole.

Some other points that came up:

• CM musn’t get in the way of an agile process - but the basic CM process must be followed.
• Continuous Integration is fairly straightforward to set up - but needs automated tests in place.
• Few new graduates know anything about CM or the value of CM. This can lead to resistance when they have to use CM.
• Frequent releases help process improvement.
• A balance needs to be achieved between broken builds and limiting check-ins.
• A good heuristic for process maturity is the ease with which an organisation produces its software release notes!

Robert’s slides will be available on the SPA Cambridge site at a future date.