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 - so far - two Open Spaces scheduled (see below) but if you have a topic that you want to organize an Open Space around, contact me (bendix@cs.lth.se) and I will put it on the programme.

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:

Syllabus in SCM at University (Lars Bendix)
Recent numbers state that around 6.7 mio. people are employed in the IT industry in the European Union - and that that number is expected to grow by about one million in the next five years.
A rule of thumb says that about 2-10% of the people and resources on a software project should be dedicated to SCM. That translates into that 130-670.000 people should work with SCM just in the EU. If we put the figure very conservatively to just 1% then it means 67.000 SCM-people - and given an average "life-time" as CM-person of about 30 years that means that in the order of 2.000 new SCM people have to be recruited every year. At the university in Lund we educate 40-45 students every year - and we are one of just three universities world-wide to have a dedicated course on SCM:
http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/cs/Education/EDAN10/

Since there is a lack of qualified SCM people at universities, we cannot expect the number of dedicated SCM courses to grow significantly. So a more promising way to get SCM into the coming students' curriculum is to give more students a brief introduction to SCM:
http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/cs/Personal/Lars_Bendix/Teaching/1-ECTS-SCM/index.html

Now, given that you practitioners are the "customers" to the students we educate at university, what would you like to see in the syllabus for both the full-scale course and for the brief introduction?

Can you do without traceability? (Christian Wolfgang)
Traceability is one of the most valuable abilities for configuration managers.
Not being able to trace artifacts in the software development process, means that vital information about it can be lost. Activities can't be correlated and questions why actions are taken cannot be answered. Unjustified actions and loose ends can cause trouble.
End to end traceability can secure that information.