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.

Refer to the Supplier Agreement Management process area for more information about establishing supplier agreements.

Configuration management of work products can 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 work group products but also to configuration management of organizational work products such as standards, procedures, reuse libraries, and other shared supporting assets.

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

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.

For product lines and standard services, configuration management can involve additional considerations due to the sharing of core assets across services and service systems and across multiple versions of core assets and service system components. (See the definition of “product line” in the glossary.)

Refer to the Work Monitoring and Control process area for more information about monitoring the work against the plan and managing corrective action to closure.

Refer to the Work Planning process area for more information about developing a work plan.

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