CM Tradition and SCM Culture

CM (before SCM) is characteristic of a tradition. In this tradition, the knowledge is individual. Information binds to secret (this is the logic of the Shannon theory of information). Communication is about transfer of information. The reality is given --it need not be managed since there is only one of it-- one has to discover it (the realm of natural sciences).

With the advent of an SCM culture, all this changes: the reality has to be invented (the realm of the sciences of the artificial); communication is about maintaining a commitment, agreeing about an horizon; knowledge is collective (shared). Information which would be secret has low value: it cannot be depended upon safely.

-- MarcGirod - 17 Mar 2003

Opinion: From this and many other pages at the CmWiki site, we see a similar phenomena that often happens in real companies: CM becoming a philosophy rather than a practical and operational process to (help) control development projects. Endless discussions, some theoretical, some hypothetical or even scientific, but hardly anything practical coming out of it.

It makes it very hard to decide where to put and where to find practical knowledge of CM.

-- FrankSchophuizen - 19 Mar 2003

Thanks for your attention Frank, but... I need more. This Wiki is supposed to be collaborative, and thus there should not be anybody "more equal than others", especially when deciding what is useful and what is not. I have great trouble in fighting against certain practical advices which I find ill-advised. It is typically in this kind of situation that I feel the need to take some wider perspective.

-- MarcGirod - 21 Apr 2003

Hi Marc! As you know I've engaged in some of your discussion pages and find them intriguing. Like Frank, I admit it is hard to see where youre heading with all this. Could you perhaps create some kind of roadmap/outline page that tries to give the executive summary and "big picture" of what you are trying to get at, and perhaps have it include links in appropriate sequence to the other pages? (something like the ExtremeProgrammingRoadmap^? on the original wiki, but as it applies to the overall mission you are trying to achieve with much of your philosophical content?

-- BradAppleton^? - 29 Apr 2003

Trying in Yet Another SCM Manifesto.

-- MarcGirod - 14 May 2003