Those individuals who participate in the Configuration Management function either at the project, organizational, test, or release levels are responsible for helping the projects to preserve the results of the hard work that has been done while at the same time providing for a controlled, systematic way of making necessary changes.

As will be described in detail in Chapter 7, Configuration Management engineers and managers and other individuals such as the project manager, the quality assurance engineer, and the test manager work together to enable the proper execution of the basic Configuration Management functions including:

• Identification;

• Baselining;

• Change control;

• Configuration Management status accounting;

• Configuration auditing;

• Managing the Configuration Management system;

• Interface control (both technical and organizational);

• CM tool support;

• Supplier control;

• Migration from developmental change control to organizational change control.

The organizational change control board (CCB) is responsible for controlling any and all changes to the requirements that represent the agreement or contract with the customer. In that capacity, the organizational-level CCB takes on the responsibility of representing the interests of all groups and disciplines that may be affected by the proposed changes to existing baselines. Some organizations have also established a requirements CCB (RCCB) that includes the chief architect. All requirements and requirements changes, including those that originate from trouble reports, are first funneled to this RCCB to determine if the requested change would have an impact on the established architecture and strategic business direction. If it is determined that no significant impact would be realized to...