Change, Release Configuration Inter-relationships

ITIL Relative to CMMI Whitepaper, Institute of Configuration Management

Which of the three related areas - Release, Change or Configuration becomes the umbrella term under which change is performed will depend on primary organizational intentions:

• Maintaining the integrity of the 'known and trusted environment' (ie. the production environment) implies the ability to carefully monitor the configuration items which comprise it. Change and release processes support this goal, but Configuration Control and Management is the central process.
• Where the greatest pain to the organization is considered to result from poorly implemented changes and/or from the removal of recurring faults that cause incidents, the primary focus is usually on Change Management. Release Management is but one source of environmental faults. Configuration Management provides important information to support the Change processes.
• Release Management is concerned with planning and implementation, whereas Change Management is focused on control and verification. When this planning and implementation activity constitutes the major source of all Changes, then primary emphasis will likely be on Release Management. Change Management becomes a step in the larger release process (though it must, by necessity, also address the need for removing faults from the production environment). Configuration Management provides primary information for quality control of the released products.