Seminar We make no secret of the fact that Configuration Management (CM) is fundamental to IT governance generally [declaration of interest: which is why the author of this piece is on the committee of the BCS Configuration Management Specialist Group (CMSG)]. But even in the CMSG, people do not always agree on exactly what CM is - and how wide its scope is.

This is particularly an issue for developers who may see it as "just" version control (implemented in Subversion or Perforce, perhaps).

That's certainly part of it, but you have to be careful that some corporate suit doesn't impose a heavyweight and over-controlling configuration management system on you, which does a lot more than just version control, but which slows down code production. So you do need to be aware of the issues.

Now there's a chance to get an insight into Configuration Management (in the context of ITIL v3) from Shirley Lacy (author, with Ivor Macfarlane, Service Transition book for ITIL V3 and a member of the British Standards committee for developing the BS 15000 IT Service Management standard).

This free CMSG event is held on 11 October at the BCS Offices at 5 Southampton St, London. Register here. Be the developer who can take an active part in the discussion when the bosses start imposing development management standards. ®

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• British computer society blunders on BCC (26 October 2007)
• Book review Service Design - ITIL v3 (10 October 2007)
• Interview State of the ALM art (11 August 2007)
• Codice Software shows off new SCM tool (30 July 2007)
• Editor's blog CMSG gets ITIL (25 May 2007)