Suppose you are working on a project to construct a school building with ten classrooms. For example, suppose you are developing a product and the client requests the addition of some extra features. Generally the reviewers check if the release matches the acceptance criteria, if there are unusual bugs or inconsistencies and you should be ready to bring in the relevant business interests to approve. These tickets will be more detailed with design and implementation components.
- CCB meetings and reviews are essential for effective CM, but they can also be challenging, time-consuming, and prone to conflicts.
- In the change management system, you manage the changes related to the project scope, planning, and baselines.
- The contractor makes the decision when the change is to items/configuration
documentation for which it is the configuration control authority,
provided those changes do not impact the Government’s baselines. - Since all existing CI configurations cannot often be updated simultaneously,
careful consideration must be given to either delaying or accelerating
the incorporation of the change to minimize the impact. - These specifications represent the technical requirements for the design, code generation, testing, and integration of structural units and components.
- These CM activities are complementary with existing DoD CM processes for the DARS, the DoD Information Technology Standards Registry (DISR), and the Metadata Registry (MDR).
- A higher-level CCB could tackle major change requests that have significant impact on costs or customer.
In response to a CCB Directive,
the Government contracting office prepares and negotiates a contract
modification to authorize the contractor to proceed with implementation
of the approved class I ECP or major/critical deviation. Another key to successful CCB meetings and reviews is to prepare the change requests and supporting documents in advance. A change request is a formal document that describes the proposed change, its rationale, its impact, its priority, and configuration control boards its dependencies. Supporting documents may include technical specifications, design drawings, test results, risk assessments, cost estimates, and customer feedback. Preparing these documents ahead of time ensures that the CCB has all the information it needs to evaluate the change request and make an informed decision. Configuration management (CM) is a process of identifying, tracking, and controlling changes to the configuration items (CIs) that make up a system or product.
Example workflow for project growth and maintenance
The functional architecture should be placed under technical configuration control to establish a functional design baseline for software design synthesis. The functional architecture must be complete and traceable to software specifications. A structured and consistent process for CCB meetings and reviews can help streamline the workflow and reduce the risk of errors and inconsistencies. By following such a process, changes can be managed in a timely, transparent, and traceable manner.
The organization’s change management policy will define the CAB’s constitution and its scope, which can include anything from proposals and deployments to changes to roles and documentation. Organizations may choose to have a single CCB handling change requests across multiple projects. A low-level CCB could handle lower priority change requests, for instance non-customer-facing features or changes with low/no cost impact. A higher-level CCB could tackle major change requests that have significant impact on costs or customer. The Change Control Board and the Change Advisory Board are similar organizational structures play vital roles in decision making.
Configuration Management System
An example of a change management system can be additional funding requirements or a schedule extension, while an example of configuration management can be an extra feature added to the product. If the change request is approved, you will update the concerned baseline, update the project documents, and inform the concerned stakeholders. In the change management system, the change request is analyzed for any possible impact on any other project objectives. In the change management system, you manage the changes related to the project scope, planning, and baselines. Here you manage changes related to project management plans, processes, and baselines.
Results show that DMC is able to greatly reduce the energy consumption, both in terms of aeration and pumping energy. Furthermore, ammonia concentration in the effluent and total nitrogen are significantly reduced. Among the different proposed strategies, C1 and C3 are the best in term of pollutant removal, but they are not the most convenient for energy consumption. C2 and C4 reduced AE and PE, but with a little increase of the ammonia and total nitrogen effluent concentration. The best choice as compromise between the two control objectives is configuration C4, which uses five manipulated variables. Change management and configuration management do not compete for the same space.
Security Controls and Services
No matter the frequency of meetings, the Change Manager should communicate the scheduled change required well in advance of meetings, so individuals on the CAB are prepared to make the best decisions. IT service management has long suffered from bureaucratic approaches and general risk aversion—which results in layers of approvals, development delays and confusion, and, ultimately, failure to deliver value to customers in an agile manner. This situation is exacerbated in companies with legacy systems and structures that prohibit the flexibility for change that digital transformation requires.
His specialties are IT Service Management, Business Process Reengineering, Cyber Resilience and Project Management. Learn how ServiceOps can help you predict change risks using service and operational data, support cross-functional collaboration to solve problems, and automatically recommend problem resolutions. The CAB can also meet to review previously executed changes particularly those that were unsuccessful or unauthorized, as well as plan the forward schedule of future changes particularly with regard to projected service outage and customer/business plans. When taken together, these security control principles form the basis for the security requirements, which should be defined in any level of architecture and design.
What are the best practices for conducting effective CCB meetings and reviews?
To approve
the CCB Directive (CCBD), a person must be the primary (or alternate)
CCB member designated by the CCB charter. The CDCA on the other hand, pertains to specifications or any
other type of document and is independent of the organization that
physically maintains and stores the document. The CDCA is the organization
that has the decision authority over the contents of the document,
reflecting proprietary or data rights to the information that the
document contains. The CDCA may be a Government activity or a contractor,
and the authority may be transferred. Now I hope you will not have any problem solving questions on the PMP exam regarding change management and configuration management systems. Please note that in the first case, you raised the change request to increase the deadline of the project by one week.
CM provides an orderly way to facilitate change, based on a documented requirements baseline, and utilizing best practices in the change management process. This is intended to ensure that expectations are fully understood and realized in an efficient manner, including proper consideration of all potential impacts on customers and resources. CM is a necessary and critical process to assure an orderly and stable evolution of any Architectural Description and also to ensure that the DoDAF remains current in the face of evolving methods and techniques of Architectural Description creation and management.
Follow a structured and consistent process
To manage these conflicts and expectations adequately, it is important to establish clear ground rules and guidelines for the CCB meetings and reviews, such as roles, responsibilities, procedures, criteria, and deadlines. Additionally, encouraging respectful and constructive dialogue between the CCB members and other stakeholders is essential; personal attacks, blame, or criticism should be avoided. Acknowledging and addressing any concerns or issues raised by the CCB members and other stakeholders should also be done while providing evidence, rationale, and alternatives where possible.
DM2 issues impacting the foundation are forwarded to the International Defense Enterprise Architecture Specification (IDEAS) Group for consideration. When a number of changes have accumulated, the TWG recommends a new DM2 baseline version be established and released. Upon, approval by the CCB, the new DM2 is published along with a record of changes from last baseline and a new working copy is setup. Poor change control can significantly impact the project in terms of scope, cost, time, risk, and benefits. Therefore, it is crucial that the CCB members are sufficiently equipped with information, experience, and support necessary to make the best decisions. Since all existing CI configurations cannot often be updated simultaneously,
careful consideration must be given to either delaying or accelerating
the incorporation of the change to minimize the impact.
Using agile and DevOps to get better results than a change control board
Automated tests are run on any code corrections via a PR and PR review to the release branch. As a public user, I want to know that my complaint was submitted so that I can complete the process and save the information for my records. Roadmaps need to be regularly updated and renegotiated as the project develops to make sure you are building the right product.
