Configuration Management Detail

Purpose

Within a project, the purpose of Configuration Management is to identify, track and protect the project’s deliverables or products from unauthorised change.  Configuration Management is a discipline that gives precise control over the project’s assets allowing managers to:

• Specify the versions of products in use and in existence and hold information on their status, who owns them and relationships between them;
• Maintain an up-to-date record containing these pieces of information;
• Control changes to the products ensuring that changes are made only with the agreement of appropriate named authorities;
• Audit the records to ensure that they contain the authorised products and only these products.

Within a Project the job of Configuration Management is to provide:

• Mechanisms for managing, tracking and keeping control of all the projects products.  It keeps files and libraries of all the products of a project once they have been quality controlled, controlling access to them and maintaining records of their status;
• Safe and secure storage of each product in a way that is most appropriate for that product.  This will include controlling access to the product in such a way as to avoid, on the one hand, ‘damage’ to the product and on the other to protect against inappropriate access;
• The ability to select and package the various components that comprise the final working product; and
• A system for logging, tracking and filing all project issues

An example of what would happen without Configuration Management may help to demonstrate the reasons why it is vital to running successful Programmes/Projects – The IT capability of an organisation was outsourced and the new owners felt that Configuration Management was unnecessary bureaucracy and therefore made the team who were to perform this role redundant.  Six months later the organisation had four different versions of trial software being tested and no one knew which was the latest, which bugs had been eliminated and what the current problems were.  It was estimated that to roll back the project by six months to the last known version and reintroduce configuration management would cost over £2 million.

Another example of when Configuration Management is vital might be where a Project Manager suddenly goes off on long-term sick leave.  How would the organisation know what has been agreed to be delivered, what has been delivered and what changes (if any) have been authorised and made from the original agreed requirement?  Where would the organisation or replacement Project Manager find the current version of the project documentation?  How would they know which document was the latest version?  Who authorised the changes and when?

Sources

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) refers to Configuration Management via a number of Programme/Project steps such as change Control, Document Management etc.  

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) refers to Configuration Management via a number of Programme/Project steps such as Change Control, Document Management etc.  Configuration Management may be applied to all version-controlled deliverables, for example:

• objects, code modules etc,
• specification documents,
• configuration settings,
• client operating system builds,
• user procedures and documentation.

The main rule is, only one person should have the ability to update a controlled item at any one time. A library system similar to the diagram above should "check out" an item for update, and "check in" the item when the work has been completed, checked and approved for update. Various access and authorisation rules will be applied to ensure people follow the procedures. You should make sure the controls are enforced physically with password systems, discrete environments, etc - but remember to allow for those operational emergencies when the library's owners are unavailable.

The model represents the process flow for documents where each draft version must be kept under Configuration Control. Here a configuration register This document records details such as the id/ref, location, description, dates of any changes, agreement information and comments relating to products or work packages delivered by the Programme/Project.  In many large programmes, proprietary software tools are used to maintain the configuration register. will be updated each time a new version of the document is created and a copy of the version will be filed so that, if necessary, it will be possible to revert to an earlier version of the document.

The Configuration Management plan will outline the detail of the roles and responsibilities of configuration management.  In some cases the Programme or Project Manager may also take the role of Configuration Manager, however where the Programme/Project is particularly large there will be a Configuration Manager appointed or Configuration Management will be part of the Programme/Project support arrangements:

Roles and Responsbilities