Configuration Management Within Prince [Paperback]

Colin Bentley (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 92 pages
• Publisher: Blackwell Pub (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1855541734
• ISBN-13: 978-1855541733
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,040,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Applicable to PRINCE 2 and fills gaps in the PMBOK, June 28, 2001

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Configuration Management Within Prince (Paperback)

Although this 92-page book was written before PRINCE version 2 was released in 1996 the material applies to the current version without modification.

Mr. Bentley, who has written extensively about PRINCE, starts this book with a quick overview of PRINCE. If you are familiar with PRINCE 2 you can safely skip this chapter. However, if your interest is project management configuration management processes and procedures and you are not familiar with PRINCE then I strongly recommend that you go through this chapter to see how CM fits within a mature and well-defined project management methodology. The PRINCE project management components described in this chapter are also necessary to understanding the larger context.

Chapter 2 is a brief overview of configuration management, benefits and costs. The next ten chapters systematically cover roles and activities associated with PRINCE in particular and project management CM in general. The sequence is: configuration librarian's role, configuration management plan, identification conventions, configuration item attributes, product issue and submission procedures, baselines, change control, building a release package, project documentation and status accounting and auditing. In short, all of the key elements of a configuration management program.

The final chapter stands out because it provides two configuration management methods that can be directly applied to the PRINCE 2 methodology (or any project management approach for that matter). For the PRINCE 2 practitioner this chapter is particularly valuable because it can be easily mapped to the PRINCE 2 processes. For other practitioners, such as Project Management Professionals (the U.S. certified counterpart to PRINCE 2 certified practitioners), this chapter provides a clear roadmap to incorporating configuration and change management into a project.

Another valuable part of this book is the appendix, which provides a comprehensive set of example forms that can be used. The forms provided are: product submission request, status change request, filing log index, issue log, issue report, off-specification log, off-specification report, request for change form and request for change log.

This book is the most comprehensive treatment of project configuration and change management available. Although it's out of print I strongly recommend that any serious project manager, especially one who works within the PRINCE 2 framework, make the effort to obtain a copy. The information directly applies to PRINCE, through version 2, and will also fill some of the gaps on project configuration and change management in the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge.