ISO/IEC 15504

An Emerging Standard on Software Process Assessment

This international collaborative effort to develop a standard has been underway since June of 1993. The prospective standard is intended to, among other things, establish a common framework for expressing the process capability ratings resulting from a 15504-conformant assessment. This includes a migration path for existing assessment models and methods wishing to become 15504-conformant.

The effort is being carried out in a joint technical committee of the International Standardization Organization and the International Electrotechnical Commission.

Looking at the Goals for a Standard on Software Process Assessment you must take on following points:

The overall goals of the standard are to encourage organizations interested in improving product quality to employ proven, consistent and reliable methods for assessing the state of their processes and to use their assessment results as part of coherent improvement programs.

The use of process assessment within an organization should encourage a culture of continuous improvement (see BMWs KVP strategies and methodologies) and the establishment of the proper mechanisms to support and maintain that culture.

This includes the engineering of processes to meet business requirements the optimization of resources. One of the outcomes of assessment and consequent improvement programs is reliable, predictable, and continuously improving software processes.

The standard is not to be used for trade restraint.

The standard will be regularly revised and improved to reflect experience based on actual usage of the standard and advances in our understanding of software technology.

The scope of the standard is process assessment, process improvement, and capability determination. Software process domains to be assessed are acquisition, supply development, operation, maintenance, supporting processes and service support.

The standard is intended to establish a common framework for expressing the process capability ratings of a 15504-conformant assessment and to provide a migration path for existing assessment models and methods wishing to become 15504-conformant.

The case for an international standard on software process assessment was further developed during the ensuing study period (June 1991 - June 1992) by a Study Co-ordination Team (sponsored by the MOD) within JTC1/SC7/WG7 which drew upon the resources of a U.K. Technical Experts Group. The study resulted in the following conclusions:

• There is international consensus on the need for a standard for process assessment.
• The standard should be concerned with the processes used in the procurement, development, delivery, operation, evolution and related service support of software and software-dependent systems.
• The standard should be applicable by procurers for the evaluation of supplier capability and by suppliers for the purpose of self-improvement.
• The development of the standard should aim to utilise the proven and best features of existing assessment methods, and to draw on existing material wherever relevant.
• The developers of several existing schemes are supportive of the concepts of the new standard and are willing to contribute to its development.
• There is consensus on the need for a rapid route to development and trialing to provide usable output in an acceptable timescale and to ensure that the standard fully meets the needs of its users.

In addition, the study report contained a set of requirements, success criteria and a proposed architecture for the standard.

The SPICE (Software Process Improvement Capability Determination) project is an ancillary effort staffed primarily by volunteers from around the world. The SPICE project has three goals:

Assist the standardization effort in its preparatory stage to develop initial working drafts. Undertake user trials in order to gain early experience data that will form a basis for revision of the published technical reports prior to review as full international standards. Create market awareness and take-up of the evolving standard.

An early decision was made to pursue full standardization by first producing an International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) Type 2 Technical Report (TR), and then converting it to a full international standard. When the subject in question is still under technical development, or where for any other reason there is the possibility of an agreement at some time in the future, the publication of a Type 2 TR may be deemed (by JTC1) to be more appropriate (than an IS).

The typical standardization route is to progress technical work through six successive stages as follow:

Stage 0 (preliminary stage): A study period is underway.
Stage 1 (proposal stage): A New Work Item Proposal (NP) is under consideration.
Stage 2 (preparatory stage): A Working Draft (WD) is under consideration.
Stage 3 (committee stage): A Committee Draft (CD) is under consideration.
Stage 4 (approval stage): A Draft International Standard (DIS) is under consideration.
Stage 5 (publication stage): An International Standard (IS) is being prepared for publication.
The successive stages of the technical work for a Type 2 TR are defined as follows:

Stage 1 (proposal stage): An NP is under consideration.
Stage 2 (preparatory stage): A WD is under consideration.
Stage 3 (committee stage): A Proposed Draft Technical Report (PDTR) is under consideration.
Stage 4 (approval stage): A Draft Technical Report (DTR) is under consideration.
Stage 5 (publication stage): An TR is being prepared for publication.

The decision to publish a TR (type 1, 2, or 3) is taken by JTC 1 ballot on a DTR. P-members and TCs and organizations in liaison are asked to submit their comments (and P-members their votes) by a specified date. This date should be no less than three months and fourteen days from the date of distribution.

When the majority of the P-members of JTC 1 have agreed to the publication of a TR, it is submitted by the JTC 1 Secretariat to the ITTF, normally within two months.

Once the 15504 document set has been published as a TR, SC7 shall make a recommendation to JTC 1 prior to the third year after publication, stating whether the TR should be:

• converted to an IS without change
• revised and published as an IS
• confirmed for continuation as a TR
• revised for publication as a revision to the TR withdrawn