ABSTRACT
Practitioners of configuration management (CM) have been so well trained and the definitions for the terms used in their art have such specific meanings that at times they lose focus on the management theory that resulted in the documentation they know so well and cite chapter and verse. CM implementation is inclusive of all phases of a product or service's life cycle from the end user, contractor, and subcontractor perspectives. The ultimate result of CM is product and service standardization, such as the acceptance of video home system over Betamax for home video in the 1980s. CM, as practiced in different enterprises, may concentrate on a single aspect of the product life cycle or the product life cycle itself as viewed from the perspective of one piece of the total market segment. The CM department in many enterprises performs only a subset of the entirety of CM due to variations in organizational structure.
