Optimization of Configuration Management Processes

Abstract: Configuration management is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, as well as functional and physical attributes with regards to requirements, design and operational information throughout its lifecycle. The way configuration management is implemented in a project has a huge impact on the project’s chance of success. Configuration management is, however, notoriously difficult to implement in a good way, i.e. in such a way that it increases performance and decrease the risk of projects. What works well in one field may be difficult to implement or will not work in another. The aim of this thesis is to present a process for optimizing configuration management processes, using a telecom company as a case study. The telecom company is undergoing a major overhaul of their customer relationship management system, and they have serious issues with quality of the software that is produced and meeting deadlines, and therefore wants to optimize its existing CM processes in order to help with these problems. Data collected in preparation for the optimization revealed that configuration management tools were not used properly, tasks that could be automated were done manually, and existing processes were not built on sound configuration management principles. The recommended optimization strategy would have been to fully implement a version handling tool, and change the processes to take better advantage of a properly implemented version handling tool. This was deemed too big a change though, so instead a series of smaller changes with less impact were implemented, with the aim of improving quality control to minimize the number of bugs that reached production. The majority of the changes had the purpose of replicating the most basic functions of a version handling tool, as well as automating manual tasks that were error prone.