configuration management and project change control

Configuration management should be viewed no different to hardware and software. In terms of mutability it sits some where in between, nearer to software, than hardware generally. Controlling it is controlling an other document effectively.

Change control, isn't difficult. This a change, this is the impact, the risk and the benefit, yeah or neh. :p

Assesssing those and getting agreement that the assessment is correct, well that's where PMs earn or not their munificent salaries.

Essentially if it get's logged as change, that means the customer is going to pay extra, or lose something they thought they were going to get. Politics and cost. Complexity only changes it in degree, I've seen 'simple' (from a technical point of view), go critical when someone important opened their gob.
The key to make a start on managing it, is to reduce the volume and the criticality. That's get your scope right and modular design. make sure you identify changes to how you do something and what you are doing.
If it's a what, your plan, estimates, possibly any completed work, in fact call it everything could be complete twaddle. Needless to say, footing the bill for that isn't incredibly popular.

I do configuration management for a very large mainframe site in a large, multi-national bank. The key to making it work well is to have strong naming standards, strong documented processes in place and the backing of management to do it properly.

Having centralised control (ie. mainframe) makes it all that much achievable, plus using a proper tool like Endevor, and using it well, helps.

We manage 75,000,000 lines of application code over 3 production MVS systems and it all works like clockwork. But the key is to have management commitment to doing it properly.

The idea of achieving this level of productivity and success on distributed systems fills me with dread. My team mate and I (there's only 2 of us) are waiting for the day internet banking goes off the air, when the cowboys will come to us wringing their stetsons in their hands, spurs jingling as they walk, asking us to help them bring order to their chaos.