Software Configuration Management (H. Ronald Berlack)

[Software] Configuration Management is the the management of a software design as it evolves into a software product or system. It is also a means of communicating to the project's designers and developers, the technical detail and events that lead to the eventual build? and delivery of the final product. It is not a hard line of control or wielding of the proverbial billy club. Those who have employed CM offer their praises. Many who did not employ CM rue the day they turned it down, never to know what caused their projects to do so poorly. . . . Configuration Management has been described as a discipline that governs the identification, control, status accounting, and auditing of a given entity, such as a software program or system, and the components? that make up that entity. It has also been described as one of the many processes that occur within a developing engineering environment? in which several engineering, software, and manufacturing processes are performed concurrently. . . . The primary activities of configuration management are identification, change control, status accounting, and configuration audit. Also added is interface control, and subcontractor CM control. Experience has shown that these are most essential to the successful conduct of the CM process when interface and subcontractors are part of a project.

H. Ronald Berlack; Software Configuration Management; John Wiley & Sons, 1992.