Configuration Management is a comprehensive topic in itself and its application extends to overall product management lifecycles, engineering design, quality assurance, records management, etc. The focus of this post is to help understand configuration management in the context of project management, especially as it relates to integrated change control. The discussion of this topic in A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® guide) and several other PMP preparation guides is not comprehensive and many prospective exam takers often don’t understand configuration management and its relationship to change control.

Given the sheer volume of information available on the topic, this post is divided into three parts –

• Configuration Management Primer (below)
• Configuration Management Introduction
• Components of Configuration Management

If you are only interested in a brief introduction to configuration management for the purposes of PMP preparation, the first post will be sufficient. For those brave souls willing to delve deeper into the world of configuration management, posts 2 and 3 will give you a good introductory knowledge and reference to study more should you choose to delve even deeper.

Configuration Management – Primer

The PMBOK® Guide defines a Configuration Management System as – “A subsystem of the overall project management system. It is a collection of formal documented procedures used to apply technical and administrative direction and surveillance to: identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a product, result, service, or component; control any changes to such characteristics; record and report each change and its implementation status; and support audit of the products, results, or components to verify conformance to requirements. It includes changes, documentation, tracking systems, and defined approval levels necessary for authorizing and controlling changes.”

Not a very self-explanatory definition I assume!

Within the context of project management, we use configuration management to control changes to specifications (functional and physical) of the project’s product and maintain a central repository of the most updated design (the latest version), previous versions starting from the initial baseline design, and details of all changes that were implemented, under implementation, and those waiting a decision. In short, a configuration management system provides formal documented procedures to control changes to product specifications and ensures any change to one component is carried through to all dependent components, e.g. change to the diameter of a blind rivet used for aircraft construction may affect multiple design features.

PMI’s standard on Project Configuration Management recommends using configuration management to control process baselines as well (project management plan, schedule, cost, etc.).

Some key aspects of configuration management you need to know for the PMP exam are:

• Configuration Management System is a sub set of Project Management Information System (PMIS) and Change Management System is a sub set of Configuration Management System.
• Configuration Management is used to control the physical and functional specifications of the project’s product (deliverables) as well processes (schedule, time, cost, etc.). This is achieved through Configuration Control.
• Change Control is focused on identifying, documenting, and approving or rejecting changes to project documents, deliverables, or baselines. A separate post discusses Change Control vs Configuration Control.
• Configuration Management System (part of PMIS) serves as a central repository to maintain all project documents and project’s products specifications. Please note the difference between a Configuration Management System and Configuration Management, the system is part of Enterprise Environmental Factors (often automated tools) that helps achieve the latter which is a management approach with defined set of activities.
• We maintain project documents, plans, artifacts as well as product specifications in the same configuration management system. You may encounter questions on the PMP exam testing where project baselines are stored and version controlled. The answer will be configuration management system which is a subset of PMIS.
• Three main aspects of configuration management are – version control, change control, and reports (audits). (Gladstone, 2008)
• The three configuration management activities outlined in the PMBOK are:
  • Configuration Identification – Identification and selection of specifications (configuration items) of a product that need to be controlled, and assigning them a unique identifier and version number for control and tracking purposes. For example, design of a new smartphone will have hardware and software as primary specifications which can further include configuration items: hardware – radio system, camera, casing, keyboard, etc; and, software – radio system software, camera software, user interface software, etc.
  • Configuration status accounting – Reporting on the status of configuration items, list of proposed changes, and implementation status of approved changes.
  • Configuration verification and audit – Verification and audit of the project’s product to confirm all changes to configuration are registered, assed, approved, tracked, and correctly implemented. It ensures product design provides agreed performance capabilities and all configuration items are in existence (nothing has been missed from the list of requirements). You will find similarities in this process with the Verification process under Control Quality.

References:

Gladstone, Kent (2008), Virtual Configuration Management, PMI Virtual Library

Project Management Institute (PMI). (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® guide) (5^th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.