11.3 Person Responsible for Configuration Management

The person responsible for configuration management implements, maintains, and improves configuration management within the framework provided by management. The holder of this role may also be responsible for the use of tools to support configuration management. This person may have overall responsibility for configuration management in the company or limited responsibility within an organizational unit, such as a product or project.

The person responsible for configuration management has to cooperate with many people inside and outside the company or the organizational unit. He or she refers directly to management or a project manager. This person should have a close working relationship with the person responsible for process management regarding processes relevant to configuration management.

The person responsible for configuration management must have a distinct sense of order and a sense for details as well as broad outlines. The person must have management skills and be good at communicating with many different types of peoplealso in adverse situations.

This person must have thorough knowledge and understanding of configuration management and the theoretical and technological states and trends for the discipline. The person must also understand the company's needs and be capable of transforming them into practical processes. The person should also have some knowledge of management disciplines, such as risk analysis, estimation, calculation of profitability, and metrics, as well as uptodate knowledge of relevant technology and available tools.

This person must also be able to "sell" the idea of configuration management in the company or organizational unit, which may require a certain amount of stamina. The role is best filled by a person with one (or more) of the team roles completer/finisher, implementer, specialist, or coordinator . Activities for the person responsible for configuration management include

• Transforming the company's needs and requirements for configuration management to relevant, practical procedures, resources, and tools

• Selecting and testing configuration management tools

• Updating information about new versions of existing tools and new tools

• Following up on the performance and efficiency of configuration management

• Making status reports to management with data analysis and recommendations for improvement

All other roles may, to a larger or smaller degree, look for leadership to the person responsible for configuration management, depending on how responsibility is divided and the degree of formality . In some companies, this person may also need a close working relationship with the person responsible for tools. This may entail splitting activities between them differently from the way described in this book. As long all activities are covered, this is fine.

Planning Configuration Management

Configuration management must be part of the activities included in planning and budgeting a product or a project. To facilitate this, the person responsible must work closely with project management in producing relevant configuration management planseither as independent documents or as parts of an overall project plan.

Managing Configuration Management Work Products

The products that the person responsible for configuration management produces may also be placed under configuration management. The person holding this role may set a good example by adhering to applicable configuration management procedures.

References

The person holding this role should be familiar with the entire book as well as other literature and sources of information described in the bibliography.