The role and application of ISO/IEC 15504 - Process Assessment

The use of techniques for assessment and evaluation of the software development process has been the focus of increasing attention over recent times.

The available evidence indicates that methods based on the various process assessment models provide the potential for substantial improvement in productivity and quality, as well as giving increased confidence to purchasers of software.

Initiatives have been taken at the international level to develop a standard for process assessment, based on generally agreed principles.

An international collaborative effort - the SPICE Network - has supported the development of an international standard for software process assessment, which is now published as ISO/IEC 15504.

This tutorial provides a detailed analysis of the framework for process assessment in ISO/IEC 15504, placing it in the context of international developments in the area, and emphasizing the role of the framework in harmonizing existing assessment approaches such as those based upon the Capability Maturity Model.
It stresses the practical issues of performing and using the results of assessment.

Because of the presenter’s close involvement with the standards development effort, the information presented will be the most current available, being based upon the approved and published version of ISO/IEC 15504.

The tutorial will include a detailed discussion of the relationship of the SPICE Framework to existing assessment approaches such as the Capability Maturity Model, as well as to other International Standards including ISO 9001, ISO 12207, ISO 15288 and ISO 20000 (ITIL).
It also discusses the continuing evolution of the Standard, and the forthcoming development of the ISO 330xx series as successor to ISO 15504.

The tutorial will address the issues of assessment of organizational maturity and the certification of assessment results; included in this will be an overview of the emergence of new approaches to process assessment based on ISO 15504, including Automotive SPICE and Pathfinder.

Terry Rout
  is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing and Information Technology at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, and leads the Process Assessment and Improvement group within the Software Quality Institute at the University.
He has been a leading figure in conducting empirical studies of process assessment and improvement, and in the transition of assessment technologies into general use within industry.
He is the overall project editor for ISO/IEC 15504: Process Assessment, and is also involved with several other activities in the development of international standards for software engineering.
He led a Study Group to determine requirements for the next revision of this key Standard, and following from this is overall Editor of the new ISO/IEC 330xx series of Standards on Process Assessment.
He was a member of the international Management Board for the SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) Project from its inception, working towards the development and validation of an international standard for software process assessment.
He is a founding member of the SPICE Academy and a member of the Governing Board of the International Registration Scheme for Assessors (INTRSA).