[.ca] Managing the Change: Software Configuration and Change ... (ISBN 3540417850)

For advanced practitioners only - not a 'how to' book:
This book is for advanced practitioners seeking ideas and best practices. It is not a 'how to' book, or even an overview of SCM and CM, but a collection of findings from the European Experience Exchange (EUREX) project. The book is divided into three parts: PART I covers how the topic relates to software process improvement,the European Systems and Software Initiative, and EUREX. Subjects covered include types of projects, stand alone assessments, and process improvement experiments (PIEs). These are aligned to EUXEX-specific approaches, which are the foundation of the book, and include: EUREX taxonomy, analysis and assessment of PIEs, and classification into problem domains. PART II, "Managing the Change: Configuration Management, Change Management", is the heart of the book. The main areas addressed include: domain overview, risks and benefits, process input-output-activities, process management, SCM plan, impact of configuration management, role of control boards in configuration management, resources for practitioners, and methods and tools. Most of this material is handled in less than a page per sub topic. The remainder of this part of the book goes deeper into details regarding the connection of SCM and CM to quality, which are directly related to various process improvement experiments. Part III is a collection of the Process Improvement Experiments in the form of report summaries. These are short and comprise over a third of the book. For those new to SCM and CM I recommend "Software Configuration Management" by Jessica Keyes (ISBN 0849319765) instead of this book because Keyes' book explains the nuts and bolts, and shows how to implement and manage SCM/CM. However, if your area of expertise is SCM (or CM) and you want to tap into the lessons learned and findings that are contained in this book, you're sure to find more than one topic that you can apply or incorporate into your methodology.

Disjoint collection:
This book is awful. It doesn't discuss the issues of Configuration management, it isn't a how-to book. It is a collection of disjoint material and results that would appeal to no one, or at least I have no idea who the target audience is. I bought this online and would not have purchased it at all if I had flipped through the pages in a bookstore first.