Recently I received an Email from a reader asking the age old question about how come SCM procedures aren’t followed in their organization and whether that is the norm for all companies. I would like to publish this Email as well my as reply because I believe this is quite important and could answer a lot of curious fellow SCM Engineers’ questions.

Reader’s Email:

Hi, This is my first time visiting your website. I have been working as a Software Configuration Management position for the past three years at the same company. I noticed that our group does not have enough visibility compare to the development and testing teams. When ever there is a time crunch, SCM policies are violated and Development team would bypass SCM in delivering the code to testing and production. My team lead has to continually “educate” SCM’s goal to upper management and convince them with the quality that improves when SCM processes are followed. Is this norm in the industry? Or it’s just our particular company has this case. Should I be staying with SCM if making big money is my goal? Or developers and testers make more money when we compare them. thank you

My reply:

Thanks for your Email. I understand perfectly your frustration. I too have been in companies where they treated SCM as the bastard step child. Oftentimes they would ignore a policy/procedure just to get the software out the door for that particular iteration–and it keeps on repeating time after time. This can be associated with several factors:

1. The organization does not place enough importance for best SCM practices
2. The SCM manager is too weak and unwilling to stand up for the group

As time passes, it does wear your down. What worked for me was walking away from that company and looked for another company that places high value on SCM practices and respects SCM in general. Though SCM is becoming more of a stand-alone discipline as of late as compared to it being an “extension” group of IT or QA several years back.