Software configuration management

Configuration management is a discipline that governs the identification, control, status accounting, audit, and interface of a given software product. It is one of the many processes that occur within an engineering development environment in which several engineering, software, and manufacturing process are performed concurrently. Configuration management (CM) is a process that provides lines of communication within a software programming enmity during the design, development, build, test, and delivery of a software product. A configuration management activity may be an individual or group designated by an entity's management to ensure that all the people participating in the software program/project know what is being designed, developed, built, tested, and delivered. In the end these same people and the ultimate users have to know what was built, tested, and delivered so that the software product is used as intended and can be supported and maintained in its environment. The CM activity interprets a customer's design and development requirements and ensures that these requirements can be traced from the initial implementation of the software to the final software product. As changes occur, the CM activity ensures they are managed in a cost-effective and timely manner. The successful performance of a CM activity requires early involvement in the development phases, early planning for support and maintenance, and assignment of the necessary authority and resources to implement the CM process on a software program or project. Success is enhanced if the organizational entity has designated an overall focal point for the promulgation of CM policy and procedure or standards CM planning, documented in a CM plan, providing the basis for the project's members understanding of their role in the CM process. For cost, the CM activity provides proven techniques for processing changes. It prevents unauthorized changes from occurring without review or approval of the requested changes, identifies all documentation and protects such documents from the incorporation of unauthorized changes, and also assures the immediate update of changed software or software documentation, thus providing for least cost of maintenance and reuse. The CM activity prevents unauthorized changes, thus helping to avoid schedule slippage. Interface requirements are addressed and documented and provide a readily available trace for impact analysis. By controlling changes and providing good communication, initial requirements are kept up-to-date and changes are noted and available for review via timely status accounting records. Requirements must be reviewed during the functional review and physical configuration audit, where requirements are compared against what was produced. Finally, all system and component interface documentation is accounted for and under control, enabling the impact analysis (of change) activity to be performed efficiently. Keywords: standards; documents; change control; process model; role; configuration reviews; configuration audits; development; plan; software library; organization; subcontractor control