Unified Change Management (UCM) was developed for projects migrating to ClearCase to get started by creating an effective out of the box use model. ClearCase is so flexible that many organizations find it overwhleming to use without some form of customization. UCM was an effort to identify the most common elements of ClearCase use models, and to create objects and methods that make the application more effective. Basically, UCM adds additional objects and workflow to the exisiting ClearCase bjects.

UCM can include an integration with ClearQuest to enforce defect and change tracking with code development through the use of activities. This is part of the Rational Unified Process which describes the lifecycle of change management for IBM Rational's software development process. It also gives integrators ownership of projects and streams to allow policy and feature management by project leaders and release engineers. UCM introduced new concepts to ClearCase, such as projects, streams, activities, baselines and components. These are losely based on exisiting ClearCase metadata.