Change Control in Configuration Management 

The market of change and configuration management has been growing consistently and it will reach 2.15 billion British pounds by 2028; according to an estimate by GlobeNewsWire. Customers’ tastes and preferences have been evolving; change and configuration management help businesses and companies to make their products customer-focused and retable. Today, we’ll discuss change control in configuration management; their definitions separately, differences between change control and configuration management.

What is Change Control?

Businesses and companies need to improve their products and services repetitively relevant to the changing and evolving tastes, interests, and preferences of customers. While implementing changes, businesses and companies need to make sure that the transition is satisfying and meets the objectives of the change project.

The process of change control comprises various steps and phases; recognizing, recording and documenting, approving or rejecting, and controlling the changes in the approved plan. The change control process documents the different stages of the change project by focusing on the key specifications of the project.

• A comprehensive change plan outlines the list of changes in the product and how to manage the concerns of stakeholders
• Analyzing the plan relevant to the impact of internal and external factors; possible risks and threats and how to mitigate them
• Management decides to implement the plan by analyzing its riskiness and probability of succeeding
• Testing and recording the impact of the changes to make sure whether it is aligning with the company’s goals and objectives
• Completely execute the change to make sure that it meets the goals and expectations

What is Configuration Management? 

Configuration management plays a critical role in the change management processes by assisting in documenting and controlling the developmental stages of the product lifecycle. While implementing changes in the company, both change control and configuration management are highly significant. Configuration management allows companies to recognize and systematically control the changes in the product configuration.

In short, change control is an area of the configuration management plan. The configurations management team records and documents the proposed changes and executes them after approval.

However, the main objective of configurations management is to document and record the product configuration without or without executing the changes. Some of the main steps involved in the process of configurations management are as follows;

• A comprehensive plan to make sure that how you analyze and control the product details
• Gathering information from multiple sources about every product that is up for changes
• Creating a baseline and defining the product to make sure that the change won’t alter the hardware, documentation, and software of the product
• Finding ways to avoid making any unnecessary changes in the product by analyzing and comparing all the product versions before and after implementing the changes
• Configuration team tests and evaluates the product to make sure that the executed changes meet the required goals and criteria and don’t resist the baseline

Differences of Change Control in Configuration Management 

Let’s discuss the main differences between change control and configuration management or change control in configuration management; they’re as follows;

Scale and Focus

The focus of change control is on the suggested and recommended small changes in the plan. It comprises a small area of the project that needs changing. They could be technological or documentation changes during the process.

Configuration management focuses on executed change in the entire lifecycle of the product. It also analyzes the previous product versions and manages the changes to ensure that they would impact the integrity of the product.

Goals and Targets

The goals of change control are as follows;

• Protecting uncontrolled and unauthorized changes in the project
• Employing comprehensive evaluation and monitoring processes to achieve the desired changes
• Approving or disapproving the changes based on multiple reasons and factors of business requirements and customer satisfaction

The main objectives of configuration management are as follows;

• Covers the entire project to ensure that the system performs and functions as required throughout its lifecycle
• Documenting and recording the configuration details of the system
• Updating and maintaining the record of all the behaviors, specifications, and components of the systems

Key Elements

Change control comprises various elements and they play a critical role in deciding whether the company should execute the changes or not. They help the company in recognizing the risk factors; some of the main elements are as follows;

• Implement plan of changes
• Records and Change logs
• Change review board
• Change requests

The elements of configuration management help the company streamline its teams, stakeholders, systems, and processes efficiently to choose the right options throughout the product lifecycle. Some of the main elements of the configuration management are as follows;

• Auditing configuration
• Accounting Configuration
• Control configuration
• Identification configuration
• Configuration planning

Practical Approach

The change control comprises of analyzing and recording the change requests based on the detailed change plan. You could only implement the changes based on the approval and available resources, analysis, and compliance.

Configuration management analyzes various systems and elements of the project in its lifecycle. It sets up the baseline for making comparisons and validating various elements based on standard protocols.

Conclusion: Change Control in Software Configuration Management | Change Control and Configuration Management

After an in-depth study of the change control in configuration management; we have realized that change control and configuration management complement each other. If you are learning about change configuration control; then you should keep in mind the abovementioned benefits, differences, elements, objectives, and steps involved in the process.