ISO 15504 – Information Technology – Process Evaluation

ISO15504 (SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability DEtermination)

Essentially, ISO/IEC 15504 contains a guide for evaluating software development projects. This guide; It includes a description of the evaluation process, a model for performing the evaluation, a description of the tools that can be used as part of the evaluation process, and descriptions of the factors that contribute to the achievement of such an evaluation.

The SPICE standard aims to emphasize the order in which activities should be performed in a software development project, especially the management and process definition structures of an organization. The ultimate goal of ISO/IEC 15504 is to achieve process improvement within a technology organization based on detailed definition of goals and programs.

ISO/IEC 15504 is organized around a reference model divided into two dimensions, the process dimension and the qualification dimension;

Processes are divided into five classes: customer-supplier, engineering, support, management and organization.

Processes are defined as skill levels quantified from 0 to 5; where 0 indicates an incomplete process, 1 indicates a process that is performed, and so on, and 5 indicates a process that is best used.

Process capabilities can also take process attributes c.x; where c is the capability level (1 for performed process, 2 for managed process, etc.). x is a number associated with a particular attribute of interest. Thus, 2.1 represents performance management, while 2.2 represents work product management. These explanations can be understood more easily on the two-dimensional chart below.

The ISO/IEC 15504 standard covers six documents (known as parts):

Episode 1: Concepts and Vocabulary

Episode 3: Guidance on conducting an assessment

Episode 4: Guidance for process improvement and determination of process capability

Episode 5: An example process evaluation model

Episode 6: An example system lifecycle process evaluation model

Episode 7: Assessment of organizational maturity

The standard is often compared to CMMI. But there are some differences between them. The various processes in ISO/IEC 15504 have no direct equivalent in CMMI (Operations, Control, Management, Infrastructure and Reuse). While organizational capability is explicitly defined through maturity levels in CMMI, organizational maturity is implicit in ISO/IEC 15504 processes.