Baseline (configuration management)

In configuration management, a "baseline" is an agreed description of the attributes of a product, at a point in time, which serves as a basis for defining change. A "change" is a movement from this baseline state to a next state. The identification of significant changes from the baseline state is the central purpose of baseline identification.

Typically, significant states are those that receive a formal approval status, either explicitly or implicitly. An approval status may be marked individually, when a prior definition for that status has been established by project leaders, or signified by association to a position above or below the established baseline. Nevertheless, this approval status is usually recognized publicly. Thus, a baseline may also mark an approved configuration item, e.g. a project plan that has been signed off for execution. In a similar manner, associating multiple configuration items with such a baseline indicates those items as being approved.

Generally, a baseline may be a single work product, or set of work products that can be used as a logical basis for comparison. A baseline may also be established as the basis for subsequent select activities when the work products meet certain criteria. Such activities may be attributed with formal approval.

Conversely, the configuration of a project often includes one or more baselines, the status of the configuration, and any metrics collected. The current configuration refers to the current status, current audit and/or current metrics. Similarly, but less frequently, a baseline may refer to all items associated with a specific project. This may include all revisions of all items, or only the latest revision of all items in the project, depending upon context.

A baseline may be a specific type of baseline, such as the body of items at a particular certifying review . Some examples include:

While marking approval status covers the majority of uses for a baseline, baselines may also be established to signify the progress of work through the passage of time. In this case, a baseline is a visible measure through an endured collective effort, e.g. a developmental baseline. Baselines may also mark milestones.

Baselines themselves are valued not only to use to identify the notable state of work product(s) but also provide historical views of how work product elements have proceeded together over time. When an historical baseline is retrieved, the state of the work product(s) in that subset share the same significance in their history of changes; that allows project leaders to compare the relative progress of single parts of a project to the project as whole, which allows project leaders to identify individual items that lag or lead in progress toward better functionality or performance. For this reason, baseline identification, monitoring, and retrieval are critical to the success of configuration management. "Once retrieved, the baseline may be compared to a particular configuration or another baseline.

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