SCM Process and Activities 

Effective Configuration Management can be defined as stabilising the evolution of software products and process at key points in the life cycle. The focus of CM includes:

• Identification of Artefacts

• Version Control

• Development Streaming (Branching)

• Baselining

• Build Management

• Packaging

• Deployment

• Change Request Management

• Issue Tracking

Below we describe each of these briefly.

Related Model 

SCM Vanilla Activity Diagram

The primary goal of version control is to identify and manage project elements as they change over time. The Configuration Manager should  establish a version control library to maintain all lifecycle entities. This library will ensure that changes (deltas) are controlled at their lowest atomic level eg documents, source files, scripts and kits etc.

To provide some level of stability and allow fluidity of parallel development (streaming) it is quite normal for project development to be split into branches (development groups).

The CM manager has to identify what branches will be required and ensure they are appropriately set up (eg security etc).

Note: Typically branches include

• Developer Branches 
• Release Branches 
• Emergency fix Branches (i.e. mirror production)

Baselining

Baselining provides the division with a concise picture of the project artifacts and relationships at a particular instance in time. It provides an official foundation on which subsequent work can be based, and to which only authorized changes can be made.

Reasons for baselining include:

• A baseline supports ease of roll back

• A baseline improves CM managers ability to create change reports etc

• A baseline supports creation of new parallel branches (e.g. dev branches)

• A baseline supports troubleshooting and element comparison

• A baseline provides a stable bill of material for the build system

Build Management

The fundamental objective of the build management process is to deliver a disciplined and automated build process. 

Activities to consider:

• Create automated build scripts (i.e. fetching from repository)

• Enforce baselining before all formal builds (support bill of materials/traceability)

• Set up stable build machines

Packaging

Typically the packaging process (see next section) will by synonymous [or tightly coupled] with the build process i.e. the build process will do packaging automatically after the build is complete. 

Primary objectives of packaging are:

• Manageable (i.e. often a single zipped up file or exe)

• Reusable (i.e. Try to avoid need for rebuild)

• Secure (i.e. Packages should be free from malicious or accidental modification)

Deployment

The configuration manager will typically be involved in the deployment process. Primary considerations include:

• Ensuring deployment automated (reducing possibility for manual errors).
• Promoting best practice concepts concept like promotion based releases (opposed to environmental rebuilds).
• Ensuring releases are authorised and appropriate windows selected for deployment.
• Providing streamlined rollback mechanism in case of problem. 

Change Request Management

Change Request management can be described as management of change/enhancement requests. 

Typically the Configuration Manger should set up a repository to manage these requests and support activities like status tracking, assignment etc. 

Issue Tracking

Issue tracking is the formal tacking of problems/defects on your systems or environments.  

Typically the Configuration Manger should set up a repository to track these problems as they occur, and track their status to eventual closure. 

Note: Due to the similarities with production and test defect tracking, it is not unusual to have a single tool to manage all.

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