Change Management Assignment: An Article Critique

Question

Task: Change management assignment requires writing a report or critique on the recent academic paper based on the process of software change management.

Answer

Introduction
In this change management assignment, we will learn how life cycle of software development needs requirement changes. The proper management of these requirement changes is very important to develop a software system successfully. The main objective of managing the required changes is to categorize, communicate, identify, and control the requirements in a software system. The main aim of the article outlined in the change management assignment is to show the process method that is used in the change management model of the proposed model. This article on change management assignment aims to show the importance of change management and need of requirement changes in the software system for the betterment of the organization. For a software system, the changes in requirements are very necessary to satisfy customer needs. RCM is identified as the main problem in collocated software organizations. In software development, requirement changes are the main cause of the failure of software projects. In large software systems, 70% of requirement changes are needed. The important process in the distributed and collocated software development is the RCM process. The requirement changes happen due to changes in the strategy of the organization, changes in the requirement of specification and quantity, changes in the technical complexities, etc. The management process of requirement changes is a combination of different elements that are roles, activities, and artefacts. A proper model of the RCM organizes the process of requirement changes in a software system.

Which research method is used in this change management assignment?
The paper that is chosen to develop this change management assignment is a type of observational paper. The author has presented many ideas with the help of the literature review. The paper includes various types of diagram which will help in gathering more information about the life cycle of the software development. In this change management assignment, this paper provides the knowledge about the life cycle of the software development and the process that are included in the change management of the software system.

Steps for the Change Management Process
The process of requirement changes consists of some basic steps. First, the requirement changes are initially requested. In the next step, the requested changes are received and taken into consideration. A specific form of the change request is used to receive the requested changes. In the next step, the received change requests are evaluated by the CCB to show the requirement change impact on the entire system [4]. In the next step, the project team and QA team members of CCB decide on the approval of the required change request or rejection of the required change request [7]. The decision of approval and rejection depends on the required change request possibilities in the software system. All the change requests that are accepted are forwarded to another phase called the implementation phase. The next step is the configuration step, where all the change request records are stored.

This change process model illustrated in the change management assignment manages the activities of change management during the life cycle of software development [8]. The model does not analyse the batch activity and verification activity of change management. Without the help of the required verification activity, it is impossible to check whether the required changes that are made in the system are properly working or not. The model of the change process does not analyze the changes in the system that is implemented in the system in the future.

The user of the software system makes the required change request and provides the source related to the change. The users requested changes forwarded to the management phase where the systems change manager manages the change request [1]. After that, the received change requests are implemented in the next phase called the implementation phase. After implementation, the changes in the system are verified by the code testing and inspecting.

Purpose of the Article
The main purpose of the change management assignment is to design a model for the management of the required changes in software development. This process model manages the requirement changes in the different phases of software development [5]. This process model is used to reduce all the shortcomings in the available models. The process model is also used to decrease the rate of failure in software development projects.

Article Methodology
The available information is extracted from the literature on the change management of requirements. Different types of literature are reviewed that include model of change management, engineering books, and case studies [10]. The literature reviews are related to the real-life implementation of change management in the software systems. Only the change management related data are extracted in the extraction phase of data. This is the discussion about the methodology of the article.

Proposed Model of change Management
The model of change management consists of seven stages that are, reject, validate, request, verify, implement, batch, and update. The stages of change management model consist of some specific activities that are used in the process of change management.

The initial stage noted herein change management assignment consists of change requests from the users of the software system it is also expected from the stakeholders. All the information about the changes like a complete explanation, reasons for change is mentioned in this stage. The second stage consists of two types of activities. The first activity of the second stage understands the costumer's change request and the second activity are related to decide on the changes. The second stage decides whether the requested change is accepted, batched, or rejected [3]. The next stage is called the rejection stage. If the customers change request is not accepted in the second stage that is the validation stage, after that the request is forwarded to the rejection stage. This stage contains the details about the rejected request for change.

The next stage mentioned within the change management assignment is called a batch. After the processing of the requested changes in the previous stage called as validation stage, some requested changes are batched. The required change requests that are batched in the stage validation that are implemented in the future but not implemented in the present because it has some limitations [12]. If the limitation of the required change requests is relaxed in the given time then the batched requests are implemented otherwise sent to the rejection phase. The next stage is called the implementation stage. In this stage, the accepted requests are implemented. The stage that is after the implementation stage is called as the verification stage. In this stage, the implemented change requests are verified. After the verification of the implemented change requests, it was clear that whether the system fulfils the specification according to the required change requests [6]. The next stage is called update. All the changes made in the system are updated in the system document. The stakeholders of the system are informed about these updates. This change process model manages the activities of change management during the life cycle of software development.

The above paragraphs of change management assignment explain about the Change management process in the software development and also explains about how the required change requests are followed various stages to get verified in the verification process and accepted for the implementation in the software system according to the specifications, features, and changes required in the development of the software system.

Issues and Limitations of the Proposed Model
The proposed model does not analyze the batch activity and verification activity of change management. In this proposed model of change management the required change requests that are batched in the stage of validation are not implemented in the present time. The process that the proposed model follows is not easy to implement. There are several stages are there for the change management in this model which takes lot of time.

Findings of the Paper
The study of the article considered in this change management assignment focused on the software change management process model development. The main aim of the proposed research is to fulfil the required changes in the available software model with the help of the proposed model of change management [2]. The findings of the article explain that the available software models of the system cannot handle all the new requirements of change management of the developed system. From the study of the article, it was found that the development of the software system needs some changes in the system according to the needs of the customer and the stakeholders. From the study it was clear that the change management process of the software system goes through several stages that change request, reject, verify, implement, validate, batch, and update [9]. The findings of the article obtained in this part of change management assignment describe the requirement changes, specifications, and features, resources that are required to develop a software system that fulfils the needs of the customers or the stakeholders of the software system [11]. The findings of the article include the process for change management of the system, limitations of the change management model, selection of the required change requests, rejection of the required change requests, and many more. These are the main key points in the development of the software system.

Conclusion
From the above report on change management assignment, it can be concluded that the required changes are very necessary and it can occur in the phase of software development. Management of the change requirements in the software system is very difficult. The proper management of the requirement changes helps to complete the project in the allotted time and the budget range of the organization. Different types of change management models are found in the article but the models have some limitations or shortcomings that can be only implemented in the future. The process model of change management is designed to overcome all the shortcomings of the available model of change management. The software organizations have to implement new ideas tom satisfy the needs of the customer. The software organizations have to implement new features, specifications and also implement the required changes of the customer in the software system to fulfil the need of the customer and to increase the revenue of the parent organization.

References
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[2]"Tracking Defects In Software Testing", International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering and Research, pp. 321-324, 2018. Available: 10.23883/ijrter.conf.20171201.065.meutr.

[3]A. Dhamija and S. Sikka, "Software Change Management: a Quantified Perspective", International Journal of Engineering & Technology, vol. 7, no. 312, p. 963, 2018. Available: 10.14419/ijet.v7i3.12.17613.

[4]F. Dadeau, J. Gros and O. Kouchnarenko, "Testing adaptation policies for software components", Software Quality Journal, 2020. Available: 10.1007/s11219-019-09487-w.

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[8]S. Jayatilleke and R. Lai, "A systematic review of requirements change management", Information and Software Technology, vol. 93, pp. 163-185, 2018. Change management assignment Available: 10.1016/j.infsof.2017.09.004.

[9]S. P., "Bayesian Software Failure Probability based Time-Invariant Tanimoto Random Testing for Software Quality Management", Journal of Advanced Research in Dynamical and Control Systems, vol. 12, no. 01-, pp. 473-485, 2020. Available: 10.5373/jardcs/v12sp1/20201094.

[10]S. Siddique and A. Siddique, "Software Change Management: A Note on Significance, Tools and Support", International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 177, no. 34, pp. 59-62, 2020. Available: 10.5120/ijca2020919820.

[11]T. Kamal, Q. Zhang and M. Akbar, "Toward successful agile requirements change management process in global software development: a client–vendor analysis", IET Software, 2019. Available: 10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0128.

[12]Tjortjis, C., 2019. Mining Association Rules from Code (MARC) to support legacy software management. Change management assignment Software Quality Journal,.