Methods and Tools for Software Change Management

This presentation covers the importance of software change management, challenges faced, and best practices to follow. It also discusses requirement change management and its process, along with its application to managing OMMS change requests. Additionally, it covers configuration management and its application using GitHub.

METHODS AND TOOLS FOR SOFTWARE
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• IMPORTANCE OF SOFTWARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• CHALLENGES OF SOFTWARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• BEST PRACTICES IN SOFTWARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• BEST PRACTICES IN REQUIREMENT CHANGE MANAGEMENT
• OUTLINE OF THE REQUIREMENT CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND
ITS APPLICATION TO MANAGING OMMS CHANGE REQUESTS.
• CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT AND ITS APPLICATION USING GITHUB
• CONCLUSION

Importance of software change management
 Similar to business process, software changes needs to be managed as both of them are interrelated.
 The information technology (IT) organization cannot understand the way the software automate their business
process without an organized change management process.
 Without appropriate controls, changes in software may result in critical data loss and several complexities
and confusion such as coincidence of different version of same code, variance of different modules [1].
 Good control of the software change management may leads to better software quality irrespective of the
software’s architecture.

Importance of software change management
 Adoption of different software architectures as well as service-oriented architecture may lead to
more movements of software parts and this increases associated risks with data and software
integrity and security [1].
 Software change control can effectively reduces such risks to a considerable extent.
 Uncontrolled software changes may result in dissatisfied and unhappy customers due to different
types of data loss and irregularities such as slow down or break down of customer interfaces.
 Inappropriate control of software change results in system instability, data loss and data overlapping
which may lead to unnecessary network to restore the system.

Challenges of software change management
 To control the technical risk that is associated with the software change.
 To control the process and the human risk that is associated with the software change
 To maximize the business benefits of the software change.
On basis of these challenges, the primary objective of the process of software change will be
 Maximizing speed-to-competence at reduced cost.
 Controlling the risk both in people and the process effectively.
 Identifying the resistance related to formal change management and implementing activities to overcome
those resistances [2].

Best practices in software change management
Identification and selection of right change agents: It facilitates in supporting the and keep running of change
process smoothly. The selected agents must have following primary attributes [3].
1)Problem-solving, strong communication, and collaborative skills.
2)Effective and efficient handling of different situations including surprises.
Making the employees to understand the need for software change: This is done by highlighting problems of the
current system and seeking advise to make the change successful.
Making the change viable: This is done by illustrating how software change will facilitate in accomplishing
organization goals.

Best practices in software change management
 Communicating the change at all levels: Managers and supervisors must provide detailed explanation of the way the
change affects the members of their department or team.
 Making the changes in timely manner: Change must not be implemented when the employees of the organization is under
tremendous pressure and have small time to adjust.
 Keep checking in: This is done by illustrating how software change will facilitate in accomplishing organization goals. In
addition, regular feedback from the employees must be taken to ensure what is actually working correctly and what is not
[3].
 Complete integration of software change: Assistance must be provided to current employees to adjust or accustom to
changes in a faster way and it is to be ensured that new joined employees must be understand it properly .

Best practices in requirement change management
Understanding requirements: Through using different techniques an understanding of the
requirements needs to be developed. Then the requirements needs to be analysed on the basis of their
way to meet customer requirements.
Getting commitment to requirements: Commitment for requirements are taken from relevant
stakeholders on the basis of approved mail from them.
Requirements change management: After approval of the requirements the changes to those
requirements are to be managed so that there must not be any negative impact of those changes on the
project [4].

Best practices in requirement change management
Recording the proposal for change: In a predefined form the proposals for requirement changes are
submitted by the stakeholders.
Analysing request for change: An analysis is performed on the proposed change to verify following [5].
1)If the request is valid or not.
2)How many system components and requirements gets affected.
3)In terms of time and money, how much the change would cost.
4)What will be the befits of the change.

Best practices of requirement change management
 Making decision on the request for change: A person or a group decide on whether the change must be
accepted or not.
 Implementing the change: It involves the following.
1) Modifying the document of requirements.
2) Providing information to the required people.

Best practices of requirement change management
Amending the document of requirements traceability matrix: Requirements traceability
matrix (RTM) must be updated with the appropriate section in each of the requirements document
after each of them have been base-lined [6].
Maintenance of alignment between project work and requirements : It involves the following.
1)Ensuring that project work must be aligned with project’s’ approved requirements.
2)Updating the project tasks with the changes to the requirements.
3)Assigning the project task to the team.

Outline of the requirement change management process
Essential or key activities that are performed in the change management process are as follows [7].
1)Identification of the needs about change in requirements.
2)Setting up relationship among stakeholders and get them involved in the requirements engineering
process.
3)Determining and tracking the attributes of the requirements.
4)Planning for change management is conducted through tracking and documentation of the essential
information for managing the project change effectively.

Outline of the requirement change management process
Requirements for the flow of the change request process : It consists of the following steps [8].
1)Generating change request (CR) by submitting completed CR form to change manager who updates
the request for change into the log of CR.
2)The project people evaluates the suggested CR and prepare an estimation for required exertion to
develop solution for proposed change.
3)The CR is authorized by getting approval about integration of the proposed change into the product.
4)After getting approval, all the essential adjustments are carried out for the requested change.

Outline of the requirement change management process
CR form and log of change management : The data elements needs to be listed and defined and
must be included in CR form and change management log. The data elements are as follows [8].
1)Date – Date of CR creation.
2)CR number that is assigned by change manager.
3)Submitter – Name of individual completing the CR form.
4)Phone and Email – Phone and email of the submitter.
5)Product and version – The product and its version for which there is suggested change.
6)Priority – It indicates the code for urgency of the indicated change.

Outline of the requirement change management process
 Evaluation and authorization of CR: It involves the following [8].
1) The type and priority of CR must be considered for evaluating and prioritizing a CR.
2) A board of change control is formed using stakeholders group who are responsible for authorizing the CR.

Application of change management in Organizational
maturity model system (OMMS) change requests
Change management can be applied to OMMS change requests at the following levels [9].
 Level 1: At this level, change management is applied as a last alternative when the project’s success is endangered
by the employee resistance . Here change management is additive and reactive to the project.
 Level 2: At this level, change management is applied on a project during arising of resistance or when project with
isolated parts using change management at start of project move close to implementation . Here change
management is not totally incorporated into project management.
 Level 3: At this level , change management is applied at the beginning pf some projects while a major portion
applies change management during implementation as form of reaction to employees resistance.

Application of change management in Organizational
maturity model system (OMMS) change requests
 Level 4: At this level, change management is applied regularly at the start of the project as a last alternative when
the project’s success is endangered by the employee resistance . Here change management function start at
project’s additive before project’s planning phase.
 Level 5: At this level, change management starts prior to the beginning of the project. Here change management
are fully integrated into project management.

Configuration management
Definition: It is a process that establishes and maintains regularity about a product’s performance, physical and
working characteristics along with its operational information, requirements and design.
Components of configuration management: They are as follows [10].
1)Configuration identification – Unique identification of each individual configuration items.
2)Configuration control - Management of product or deliverables of project and associated documentation
throughout project lifecycle.
3)Configuration status accounting - Record and report every changes to configuration items.
4)Auditing and verification of configuration – Verifying product appropriateness to ensure requirements
conformation.

Application of configuration management using GitHub for
version control and concurrent development
Version control: Version control systems (VCS) are necessary for successful configuration management of software.
Using these systems are primary requirements for tracking of content changes and contributes directly to status
accounting and configuration control [11].
Types of version control systems: They are as follows [11].
1)Source code control system (SCCS) : It manages text-file revisions.
2)Revision control system (RCS) : It keeps file wise revision history and support features of version control such as
merging and branching.
3)Concurrent version system (CVS): It saves and manages file revisions in a remote repository.

Application of configuration management using GitHub for
version control and concurrent development
GitHub: It is a platform for version control that host codes and perform the following activities. It lets
different persons from anywhere to work on projects together [12].
1)It keep tracks of the repetitive changes that one makes in its code .
2)It allows to backtrack the above changes if required.
3)It save changes to the code and integrate these changes to main code automatically.
4)It maintain parallel versions or copy of one’s code that can easily be bounced while one version is
working on the changes. This is called branching.

Conclusion
 Change management is applied for ensuring business success. Without change management , there will be an
increasing risk in missing out project objectives and losing productivity which can threaten the future of the business
 Systematic approach in requirements change management confirms that product development must deliver successful
and useful systems.
 Configuration management for software must be practiced for any type of software system. Configuration
management deals with identification, tracking and protection of deliverables of the project from illegitimate or
authorised change.

References
[1] Cameron, Esther, and Mike Green. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the
models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers, 2015.
[2] De Lemos, Rogério, Holger Giese, Hausi A. Müller, Mary Shaw, Jesper Andersson, Marin Litoiu,
Bradley Schmerl et al. "Software engineering for self-adaptive systems: A second research roadmap."
In Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems II, pp. 1-32. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.
[3] Cavalcanti, Yguaratã Cerqueira, Paulo Anselmo da Mota Silveira Neto, Ivan do Carmo Machado,
Tassio Ferreira Vale, Eduardo Santana de Almeida, and Silvio Romero de Lemos Meira. "Challenges
and opportunities for software change request repositories: a systematic mapping study." Journal of
Software: Evolution and Process 26, no. 7 (2014): 620-653.
[4] Armstrong, Michael, and Stephen Taylor. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers, 2014.
[5] Kerrigan, Martin. "A capability maturity model for digital investigations." Digital Investigation 10, no. 1
(2013): 19-33.
[6] Qazi, Raza Ur Rehman. "Assessment of course contents of software engineering course
(undergraduate) at the universities in kingdom of Saudi Arabia." International Journal of Scientific and
Technology Research 3, no. 10 (2014): 224-230.

References
[7] Dick, Jeremy, Elizabeth Hull, and Ken Jackson. Requirements engineering. Springer, 2017.
[8] Wiegers, Karl, and Joy Beatty. Software requirements. Pearson Education, 2013.
[9] Bourne, Lynda. Stakeholder relationship management: a maturity model for organisational
implementation. Routledge, 2016.
[10] Leon, Alexis. Software configuration management handbook. Artech House, 2015.
[11] Brindescu, Caius, Mihai Codoban, Sergii Shmarkatiuk, and Danny Dig. "How do centralized and
distributed version control systems impact software changes?." In Proceedings of the 36th
International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 322-333. ACM, 2014.
[12] Malhotra, Ruchika, Nakul Pritam, Kanishk Nagpal, and Prakarsh Upmanyu. "Defect collection and
reporting system for git based open source software." In Data Mining and Intelligent Computing
(ICDMIC), 2014 International Conference on, pp. 1-7. IEEE, 2014.

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