Customer Reviews

Practical CM III: Best Configuration Management Practices For the 21st Century

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This is Lyon's third CM book and an extension of his Practical CM (ISBN 0966124820). The key differences between the two books is this one is more focused on engineering development and reflects more of the author's ideas. The first book was more influenced by MIL-STD-973 and the related EIA standard 649. This one does not conflict with those standards, but does take a more real world approach, with a distinct focus on product management. In fact, there is more similarity between this book and Lyon's "Transparent CM" (ISBN 0966124804), especially in the detailed documentation of best practices versus current industry practices, and the in-depth treatment given to each stage of CM.

It is in the detailed descriptions of the phases, and how they relate to product development, that makes this book an especially valuable resource to anyone working in the PDM/PLC environment. Each phase - identification, control, status accounting and auditing - are covered widely and deeply, with best practices associated with each clearly identified and explained. Different scenarios add depth to this aspect of the book.

Two areas covered, transition to production and support, are unique to most CM books that either gloss them over, or focus on, for example field changes and product configuration, but do not devote as much coverage to these areas as they merit in the real world. The coverage of software and firmware was a bit lite in my opinion, especially since most products have one or both as integral parts, but there are a wealth of other books that cover those topics. It is interesting to note that this book's processes do align to SEI's CMMI process areas for configuration management.

Some of this material is carried over from the other two books, and there is definite overlap between the Transparent CM coverage here and his book devoted to that subject. It does serve as a nice binding and segue between this book and the one on Transparent CM.

Like Lyon's other books, this one is a definitive text on CM and an important addition to the body of knowledge.

The book is supposed to be sold with the CD that is specifically referenced on the cover. I sent the first book back and received another -- also minus the CD. The second book showed signs of wear -- returned by another customer trying to get the CD? I finally contacted the author who graciously sent me the files that would have been on the missing CD.

This experience was so different from all of my other experiences with Amazon that I am inclined to wonder how much of it was an Amazon problem and how much of it was a publisher problem. David Lyon, the author, was the person in the loop who was really interested. It wouldn't have been so ironic it whole issue had not been about a Configuration Management book!