Well, it's that time of the year again - the BCS CMSG (Configuration Management Specialist Group - I'm on its committee) annual conference on 7th June 2011 at the BCS London office. And, looking at the speakers, I'm annoyed that I'll be missing it again (I have a prior appointment with IBM Rational at Disneyworld (!) in Orlando).

This year, we welcome back a great act in the first session: Kevin Parker (from Serena Software) entitled: "The butterfly effect - how changes in application development impact on overall IT management". I rather like the idea that IT management can be impacted by applications development process at all - I remember IT managers that appeared to think that their management principles (basically, "get it in ahead of schedule at all costs, we can fix any issues in Release 1.1 - and a bit of visible production fire-fighting will make people realise how hard we're working for them") were set in stone no matter how development processes changed. But, seriously, Kevin is an entertaining speaker with a real grasp of practical realities

Then we have two parallel streams, focussing on Operations and Development. The focus, as usual, is on real practitioner experience rather than on an academic approach to managing configuration. We have Dennis Shields (from the London Borough of Waltham Forest) with a "Service & Configuration Management in an Ever Changing Environment"; Andrew Phillips (XebiaLabs) on "Implementing continuous deployment: seamless application deliveries with a DevOps mindset"; Paul Stiles (CA Technologies) with "A proven, real world approach to Application and Service Management automation"; and Deborah Pitt (HM Land Registry) with "From Zero to Hero, 16 Months of Our CMDB Journey".

We look at new approaches to making CM work in the context of IT service management generally: Julian Simpson (The Build Doctor) with "Silos are for Farmers: sources of Developer-Operations conflicts and their solutions"; and John Abram (Monetical) with "Using social network systems to define and share Agile project implementation tasks across communities".

We look at the transition and release into Operations in practice: Julian Wilson (The Caravan Club) on "Maintaining customer support when Transitioning Services from the Service Catalogue to Operation"; Brian Scott (Service Management Connect Ltd) on "Man in the Middle: Delivering a CMS/CMDB using Development Configuration Management"; Kalyan C Thatavarti (Xpedite Technologies Inc) on "Release go-live day Preparation: A light-weight framework to ensure smooth release"; Ian Johnston (SMSG) on "Bridging the DevOps gap: A standard for application events".

Finally, both steams come together for Mark Roberts (IBM) to present "Open Services for Data Interchange and Collaboration Across the Lifecycle of Software Development". This will be followed by an interactive Panel Session and the all important buffet, drinks and networking - often, I think, the most valuable part of these events, as long as you stay sober enough to remember who you met.... However, the BCS London office does put on a very fine buffet!

The program and speakers are still subject to change: get the latest program and sign up here. Non-members of the BCS and/or CMSG are welcome and at £45+VAT for BCS members and £80+VAT for non-members I think it's pretty good value for decent refreshments after a full day of presentations on a fundamental development discipline for managing change.