On any given project, a few engineers or developers specialize in and become your SCM experts. While they are the gurus, everyone on your project will be a user of the product that they select, develop, and maintain. It is better to have a few highly experienced people than a large number of inexperienced people. These experienced few must be able to see congruence between software products and perceive what is missing from a software product.
We can group the characteristics and abilities needed by the four SCM functions: identification, control, auditing, and status accounting.
Identification
Ability to see partitions
Ability to see relationships
Some technical ability
System engineering orientation
Programming
Control
Ability to evaluate benefits versus cost
System viewpoint (balance of technical/managerial, user/buyer/seller)
An appreciation of what is involved in engineering a software change
Auditing
Extreme attention to detail
Ability to see congruence
Ability to perceive what is missing
Extensive experience with technical aspects of system engineering or software engineering
Status Accounting
Ability to take notes and record data
Ability to organize data
Some technical familiarity
System engineering orientation
Programming
Once the staffing of the SCM function is complete and the overall organization's SCM policy is established, the configuration control board (CCB) is identified. The CCB is the heart of the control function. It infuses sustained visibility into the process of change throughout the system life cycle and traceability into the process of change. The membership in the CCB is not limited to the developers or product line management. All stakeholders in the product must be represented. This includes the end-user usually represented by marketing, subcontractors used in the product development, product development funders, and the product developers. The CCB is the final decision maker as to what bug fixes, enhancements, and feature sets get included in the next product release.
The CCB has periodic meetings, with the results documented. These meetings can be done in a rapid fashion, and doing them online or via email is an adequate way to gain consensus and come to a decision. Important to status accounting is the documentation of CCB meeting minutes. The basic purpose of the minutes is to provide the CCB decision makers with the information needed to make intelligent, informed decisions. The amount of detail varies with the meeting frequency and technical content.
