Improving the change-management process

Software configuration management (SCM) practices help in management, control, and execution of change and evolution of systems. SCM also helps in identifying the structure of the software products, controlling changes incorporated in software artifacts, maintaining the status of these artifacts, and generating reports for auditing and status reporting. SCM focuses on managing source code files, leaving changes to other artifacts such as requirements and design documents unmanaged and it makes use of traceability tools that help in linking conceptual and physical artifacts created during software development. Process frameworks such as Rational Unified Process (RUP) provide detailed guidelines on the working and performance and the ways to plan and execute SCM. Organizations involved in the agile software development need to create lightweight versions of general process framework to maintain the speed of development without compromising product quality.