--- title: "I'm a Configuration Manager... I Think." url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/1/im-a-configuration-manager-i-think.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/1/im-a-configuration-manager-i-think.html" published: "2003-06-01T12:09:00" updated: "2003-06-01T12:09:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "My company is now trying to employ a major shift in our working process. One of the new roles that were introduced in this process is \" The person who makes sure that no double-coding takes place among separate projects…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # I'm a Configuration Manager... I Think. By Roy Osherove June 1, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published June 1, 2003; technical details may be outdated. My company is now trying to employ a major shift in our working process. One of the new roles that were introduced in this process is "_The person who makes sure that no double-coding takes place among separate projects_"(We couldn’t come up with a better name...). I'm not really sure what's the person's job called, but I'm guessing it's called "Software Configuration Manager". And I got that job, among other stuff. We have several projects that use one major product (an engine written in C++) and each project customizes it to their own needs. Now, a problem has been gradually growing in the past several months - Projects were basically writing the same code twice for a lot of tasks. Instead of spreading the wheel, they re-invented it each time. So now, I have to learn a whole new area. I need to start coordinating the different projects in my company, making sure no one re-invents anything, and basically be the "know-it dude". My job would be organize status meetings for common project problems, bother the project managers about running tasks, and basically be pain in everyone's neck. I'm not sure I'm going to like doing this, but I can tell one thing for sure – for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be learning a lot – Which I always enjoy doing J  I was thinking that I could really use a book about software configuration. Specifically, I was checking out this book: [**Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration**](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201741172/qid=1054478091/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/iserializable-20) . It seems to cover mostly stuff related to build management, though. The basic premise is that I will be dealing only with the 'features', not their implementation. Do you know this book? Can anyone offer up a better book, or another resource for learning best practices when it comes to this subject?  Is this really what I need to learn? ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jun 2, 2003 ### [In-Your-Face](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/2/in-your-face.html) - Jun 2, 2003 ### [Medieval Times](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/2/medieval-times.html) - May 30, 2003 ### [About "Personal" Blogging](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/30/about-quotpersonalquot-blogging.html) - May 30, 2003 ### [Rent My ... What??](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/30/rent-my-what.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/