A Support Process Area at Maturity Level 2

The purpose of Configuration Management (CM) is to establish and maintain the integrity of work products using configuration identification, configuration control, configuration status accounting, and configuration audits.

The Configuration Management process area involves the following activities:

·         Identifying the configuration of selected work products that compose baselines at given points in time

·         Controlling changes to configuration items

·         Building or providing specifications to build work products from the configuration management system

·         Maintaining the integrity of baselines

·         Providing accurate status and current configuration data to developers, end users, and customers

The work products placed under configuration management include the products that are delivered to the customer, designated internal work products, acquired products, tools, and other items used in creating and describing these work products. (See the definition of “configuration management” in the glossary.)

Acquired products may need to be placed under configuration management by both the supplier and the acquirer. Provisions for conducting configuration management should be established in supplier agreements. Methods to ensure that data are complete and consistent should be established and maintained.

The configuration management approach depends on acquisition factors such as acquisition approach, number of suppliers, design responsibility, support concept, and associated costs and risks. In any case, configuration management involves interaction between the acquirer and supplier.

Planning for managing configuration items, including during the transition to operations and support, is addressed as part of project planning and supplier agreement development to avoid unexpected costs for both the acquirer and supplier. Project plans and supplier agreements should make provisions for managing configuration items within and across project teams and the infrastructure required to manage configuration items among the acquirer, supplier, operational users, and other relevant stakeholders.

In this example, the acquirer retains the authority and responsibility for approving design changes that impact the product’s ability to meet contractual requirements. The supplier manages other design changes. The acquirer maintains the right to access configuration data at any level required to implement planned or potential design changes and support options. Configuration management of legacy systems should be addressed on a case-by-case basis as design changes are contemplated.

Configuration management of work products may be performed at several levels of granularity. Configuration items can be decomposed into configuration components and configuration units. Only the term configuration item is used in this process area. Therefore, in these practices, configuration item may be interpreted as configuration component or configuration unit, as appropriate. (See the definition of “configuration item” in the glossary.)

Baselines provide a stable basis for the continuing evolution of configuration items.

Baselines are added to the configuration management system as they are developed. Changes to baselines and the release of work products built from the configuration management system are systematically controlled and monitored via the configuration control, change management, and configuration auditing functions of configuration management.

This process area applies not only to configuration management on projects but also to configuration management on organizational work products such as standards, procedures, and reuse libraries.

Configuration management is focused on the rigorous control of the managerial and technical aspects of work products, including the delivered system.

This process area covers the practices for performing the configuration management function and is applicable to all work products that are placed under configuration management.

Refer to the Agreement Management process area for more information about formal acceptance of supplier deliverables.

Refer to the Project Planning process area for more information about developing plans and work breakdown structures, which may be useful for determining configuration items.

Refer to the Project Monitoring and Control process area for more information about performance analyses and corrective actions.

Specific Goal and Practice Summary

SG 1 Establish Baselines

SP 1.1       Identify Configuration Items

SP 1.2       Establish a Configuration Management System

SP 1.3       Create or Release Baselines

SG 2 Track and Control Changes

SP 2.1       Track Change Requests

SP 2.2       Control Configuration Items

SG 3 Establish Integrity

SP 3.1       Establish Configuration Management Records

SP 3.2       Perform Configuration Audits