CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

CM establishes and maintains the integrity of work products throughout their life. Elements of CM include:

• CM plan
• change coordination
• configuration identification
• configuration control
• configuration status accounting
• configuration auditing.

CM plans establish and document the requirements, standards, practices, and procedures for configuation management. This includes defining baselines and establishing the labelling scheme for configuration items.

A baseline is a group of configuration items (products, deliverables) developed during a specific phase of the development process that has been formally accepted. Once the baseline is established, changes to the items can only be done through a formal change process.

There are five baselines typically used in system development: functional, allocated, design, product, and operational. The functional baseline may contain an initial investigation baseline, a feasibility study baseline, and a requirements definition baseline.

Change Control

Change control is the process for incorporating changes to the product and project. The change control process ensures that changes are authorized, documented, and coordinated.

Version Description Documentation

Changes or enhancements are periodically incorporated into software and released as new versions or interim changes. Version description documentation (VDD) is prepared to describe new versions and interim changes to the software. The VDD documents:

• differences between the versions
• capabilities of the version
• effects on software operations caused by the new version
• other information such as how to install the software and known errors

Read more about configuration management.

Visit the CM community: www.cmcrossroads.com

Download a CM Plan template

Checklists for impact analysis of requirements changes:

• Impact Analysis Checklist for Requirements Changes

• Checklist to help surface critical business and technical issues