Change control board


In software development, projects and programs, a Change Control Board is a committee that consists of Subject Matter Experts and Managers, e.g. from Quality domain who will make decisions regarding whether or not proposed changes to a project should be implemented. The main objective of CCB is to ensure acceptance of the project by the client. The decision of acceptance of the changes also depends upon the stage or phase, the budget, the schedule and quality goals of the project.
Change control is also part of domain Requirements engineering. In novel agile development approaches, CCBs are very relevant and at the core of agile, see Agile manifesto.
In short, any changes to the Baseline Requirements agreed with the client should be taken up by project team on approval from this committee. If any change is agreed by the committee, it is communicated to the project team and client and the requirement is baselined with the change. The authority of the change control board may vary from project to project, but decisions reached by the change control board are often accepted as final and binding.
A typical change control board consists of the development manager, the test lead and a product manager. In few of the cases the client representation is also done in CCB to ensure the acceptance of the deliverable.