BS ISO/IEC BRITISH STANDARD 15504-1:2004 Information technology- Process assessment Part l: Concepts and vocabulary ICS 35.080 BSi British Standards BSISO/IEC15504-1:2004 National foreword This British Standard reproduces verbatim IS0/IEC 15504-1:2004 and implements it as the UK national standard. It supersedes BSISO/IECTR15504-1:1998andBSISO/IECTR15504-9:1998whichare withdrawn. The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee IST/15, Software engineering, which has the responsibility to: aid enquirers to understand the text; present to the responsible international/European committee any enquiries on the interpretation, or proposals for change, and keep the UK interests informed; monitor related international and European developments and promulgate them in the UK. Alist of organizations represented on this committeecanbeobtained on request to its secretary. Cross-references The British Standards which implement international publications referred to in this document may be found in the BSI Catalogue under the section entitled "International Standards Correspondence Index", or by using the“Search” facility of the BSI Electronic Catalogue or of British Standards Online. This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application. Compliance with a British Standard does not ofitself confer immunity fromlegal obligations. Summary of pages This document comprises a front cover, an insidefront cover, the ISO/IEC title page, pages ii to v, a blank page, pages 1 to 19 and a back cover. The BSI copyright notice displayed in this document indicates when the documentwaslastissued, Amendmentsissuedsincepublication This British Standard was published under the authority Amd. No. Date Comments of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 22 November 2004 @BSI22November2004 ISBN 0580 448134 BSIS0/IEC15504-1:2004 INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC STANDARD 15504-1 First edition 2004-11-01 Information technology Process assessment Part 1: Concepts and vocabulary Technologies de l'information-Evaluation des procedés- Partie1:Conceptsetvocabulaire Reference number ISO/IEC 15504-1:2004(E) IEC Iso BSIS0/IEC 15504-1:2004 := BS IS0/IEC 15504-1:2004 Contents Page Foreword. iv Introduction 1 Scope. 2 Normative references... 3 Terms and definitions.. 4 Concept. 4.1 General. 4.1.1 Purpose and benefits. 4.1.2 Field of application. 4.1.3 ComponentsofISO/lEC15504.. 4.1.4 RelationshiptootherInternationalStandards.. 4.2 The assessment framework....... 4.2.1 Thecontextofassessmentprocess 13 4.2.2 Assessmentindicators... 4.3 Competencyofassessors 4.4 Process improvementcontext.... 15 4.5 Process capabilitydeterminationcontext 16 5 Conformance 17 Annex A (informative) Classified terms and definitions.... .18 A.1 Model architecture terms... 18 A.2 18 A.3 Measurementframeworkterms..... 18 A.4 Assessmentprocessterms.. 19 A.5 Assessor terms .... A.6 Processimprovementterms A.7 Process capabilitydetermination terms.... 19 Figures and Tables Figure 1ProcessAssessment Relationship... 8 Figure2—ComponentsofISo/IEC15504.... 10 Figure3—OverviewofrelationshipofelementsofISO/lEC15504... 12 Figure4Themajorelements of theassessmentprocess... 13 Figure5—ProcessAssessmentModelrelationships. 15 Figure7Processcapabilitydetermination 16 Table1—ReadershipofISO/IEC15504.. 10 ili BSIS0/IEC15504-1:2004 Foreword ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical ISo or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1. International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/lEC Directives, Part 2. The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards