Configuration management (CM) is an important, but often neglected, practice that allows application developers and project managers to better identify potential problems, manage changes, and track the progress of software projects. An effective CM strategy—one that adheres to the practice's complexity while harnessing its depth—can be the cornerstone of fast, flexible development. However, CM practitioners often rely too heavily on commercial CM tools, and fail to understand the concept as a whole. While CM is not an easy discipline, it need not be a difficult one.
Configuration Management Principles and Practice explains the elements and benefits of a sound CM strategy and shows how to put that strategy into action. Through configuration examples and recommendations drawn from the author's considerable experience, this practical guide will help readers to better manage and deliver projects.
Key topic coverage includes:
Incorporating CM into the overall development process
Relating test cases to requirements and tracking, assessing, and reporting on testing
Tracing product changes
Applying CM in different environments, including agile, iterative, integrated-product, and sequential development methods
Employing CM in projects, large and small, for safety-critical, composite, multiplatform, and multivariant systems
Managing multisite development
Serving cross-organizational functions
Integrating different CM tools
Improving CM processes
A comprehensive guide to the current state of CM, the text begins with an introduction to fundamental CM principles and activities and then illustrates how each can be tailored to meet a development organization's unique needs. In short, this easy-to-use reference will give organizations and individuals the tools they need to insure the integrity of their products and effectively manage the evolution of their systems.
About the Author
Anne Mette Jonassen Hass is a senior consultant and registered BOOTSTRAP lead assessor for DELTA (Danish Electronics, Lights, and Acoustics), one of Europe's leading international testing and design consulting organizations. With more than twenty years of experience in IT, she has been involved in all aspects of software development: requirements specification, analysis, design, coding, testing, quality assurance, and management. Ms. Hass was a contributor to Improving Software Organizations by Lars Mathiassen et al. (Addison-Wesley, 2002).
