Artifact:  Configuration Management Plan

CM Plan	The Configuration Management (CM) Plan describes all Configuration and Change Control Management (CCM) activities you will perform during the course of the product or project lifecycle. It details the schedule of activities, the assigned responsibilities, and the required resources, including staff, tools, and computer facilities.
Role:	Configuration Manager
Templates:	HTML Others
Examples:	The following are complete examples: Configuration Management Plan, from the Course Registration System Configuration Management Plan, from the Wylie College Process Web Site
Purpose Timing Responsibility Tailoring

Input to Activities: Define Assessment and Traceability Needs Compile Software Development Plan Handle Exceptions and Problems Develop Quality Assurance Plan Set Up Configuration Management (CM) Environment Report on Configuration Status Perform Configuration Audit Establish Change Control Process Establish Configuration Management (CM) Policies

Output from Activities: Write Configuration Management (CM) Plan Establish Change Control Process Establish Configuration Management (CM) Policies

Purpose

The purpose of the CM Plan is to define, or reference, the steps and activities that describe how Configuration and Change Control Management is performed in the development of a software product.

Timing

The CM Plan is written early in the Elaboration phase once funding has been approved for the project to proceed. We recommend you revisit it at the start of each phase and update it accordingly. The CM Plan needs to be archived so it's available for post-deployment maintenance activities, particularly for guidance on where certain software assets might be stored.

Responsibility

The Role: Configuration Manager is responsible for the integrity of the CM Plan and for ensuring that it covers all of the following:

• activities to be performed

• schedule of activities

• assigned responsibilities

• required resources (staff, tools, environment, and infrastructure)

Tailoring

The Configuration Management Plan contains information that may be covered to a greater or lesser extent by other plans.  The following approaches can be used to handle this potential overlap:

• Reference the content in another plan.
• Provide the overview in another plan and provide greater detail in this plan.  References from these other plans to the Configuration Management Plan may be useful.  This often works well on large projects with a separate organization responsible for configuration management.
• Tailor the document sections to cover only those areas that are not covered elsewhere.

The following is a mapping of Configuration Management Plan sections to artifacts that may contain complementary information:

In addition, configuration management of requirements may be covered in full or in part by the Requirements Management Plan.

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