ISO/IEC 15504

ISO/IEC TR 15504 the international standard for Software Process Assessment was first published in 1998 as Technical Report Type 2. A standard is published as a Technical Report Type 2, when the subject is still under technical development, or where for any other reason there is the future possibility of an agreement on an International Standard. The development of ISO/IEC 15504 has taken place in parallel with empirical studies of its use undertaken by the SPICE project.

A Technical Report Type 2 is subject to review within three years of publication, to decide whether it can be transformed into International Standard. In accordance with this, work on the revision of ISO/IEC 15504 commenced immediately the document set was published.

ISO/IEC 15504 has subsequently been published as a full international standard during 2003/2006 as a five- part standard under the general title Information Technology — Process Assessment. It consists of the following parts:

• Part 1 - Concepts and vocabulary
• Part 2 - Performing an assessment
• Part 3 - Guidance on performing an assessment
• Part 4 - Guidance on use for process improvement and process capability determination
• Part 5 - An exemplar process assessment model