The change request process

Configuration Management has been defined in [3] as the discipline of controlling the evolution of complex software systems. Our previous work [l] has been focused on the integration of configuration management techniques with process modeling techniques. In process modeling, its is now becoming clear that the development process description should evolve during the development. In [2], it is argued that the evolution of the development description should itself be described and must be an integral part of the development process specification. In this paper, we illustrate how this view can be applied in configuration management to support change request techniques. We consider the processing of change requests (CR) on a line of products and more specifically we focus on the activities establishing and maintaining the relationships between the “raw change requests” from customers, the products, and the development activities. We first show that the activities establishing these relationships can be modeled as activities producing and manipulating descriptions of development activities. The CR process specification can thus be integrated with the development process description as the specification of how the development description evolves. We further claim