Can somebody give an idea of whats in Windchill 10.1 OOTB Options and Variants

We have been new to windchill, and we are slowly exploring available options in Windchill OOTB. When i put myself on the role of options manager, i found "options pool" tab in details page of project. Can somebody explain me how this works in OOTB.

I have some idea of options and variants but how is this put up in OOTB.

Any help is appreciable.