Updates
Latest Tweet
What's New?
Check out for latest innovation, a computer based training video collection
Like this Page
Configuration Management Principles and Practice Review by K. Parmalee
A Useful Survey Of Present-Day CM But Needs Supplementation
In what hopefully will not be an over-repetition of other's comments, I found this book generically descriptive, theoretical, and quite dense. One of the reviewers said it would be a book best suited for university, and I agree wholeheartedly -- it would make a decent textbook for those MIS programs brave enough to tackle CM. While in the minds of many that translates to "unsuitable for the real world", I would prefer to offer the following analogy, at the risk of sounding too self-referential.
As of this writing, I've reviewed three CM titles. If they were about cooking instead of CM, here's how they would map:
Hass's CM Principles and Practice --> A Survey of Current Cooking Methods and Techniques (e.g. Frying, Basting, Folding, Mixing, etc.)
Moreira's SCM Implementation Roadmap --> Betty Crocker Cookbook
Kenefick's Real World SCM --> Screenplay to "Hell's Kitchen" or maybe "The Galloping Gourmet" (for those who remember the '70s)
General commentary aside, I'd like to offer the following suggestions for the next edition:
1) Clarify the term "event registration" on pp. 20-1. I'd also like to say I disagree with the author's view that event registration and change requests be kept as separate entities. A CM program will become hopelessly bogged down in maintaining separate event and change logs.
2) Change the term "person responsible" on pp. 146-7 to "configuration manager" -- it's easy to want to use a generic term to avoid confusion, but it's not warranted in this context.
3) Switch Chapters 12 and 13, to maintain progression of scale.
4) On page 225, what is the meaning of the word "louse"? Does the author mean "bug"?
5) Clarify the term "balance point" on pp. 302-3.
To sum, the book has a broad reach, with a useful bibliography, but by itself will not suffice for implementing CM at your company.