SCM:  Keeping your teams in sync

By ExecutiveBrief Staff

Not always obvious
Software project teams understand that they need SCM.  But because of its complexity and a clear understanding of what a good SCM system should do, many fail to get it right.

Many different groups depend on SCM, Poole says.  For example, he explains, management looks for an SCM with good process capabilities, and QA looks for an SCM that makes it easy to reproduce builds and is tightly integrated with issue tracking. On the other hand, he says, developers want an SCM that is fast, easy to use, and does not get in their way.

“Satisfying all of these groups at the same time is something that few SCM tools can claim,” Poole declares.

“C-level executives who have worked in environments with both good and bad SCM will tell you that without the foundation of good SCM, it is difficult to succeed in higher level initiatives,” Poole adds.

According to Poole, SCM is a foundational part of delivering higher productivity, higher quality, and faster time to market. And since it is basic, he explains that the leverage that SCM provides is not always obvious.

Looking forward
Poole looks at the enablement of Agile development as a milestone around the SCM corner.

“While many will tell you that Agile is a fad like other fads before it, I believe that it is here to stay,” he says, adding that he started out as a skeptic. 

“It wasn’t until I realized that it really is fundamentally different that I became an advocate. The core practices of using timeboxing with a potentially shippable increment of work done at the end of each iteration provide a superior platform for software development.” To support Agile, Poole says, SCM must evolve to fit into this new framework.

As in the words of an SCM blogger: when members of a software team do a few keystrokes, followed by a click of the Save button, they are creating a new version of the software each time—in a very fast manner and for hundreds of times during the process of building. 

One cannot undermine the discipline that SCM brings to the process when it’s time to produce the final version of the software, this SCM blogger says, when all of the system’s component parts can be brought together at the same time, in the same place, and can then be plugged together to work as required.

     Email This Article      Print This Article