ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007
(Main)Software and systems engineering — Life cycle management — Guidelines for process description
Software and systems engineering — Life cycle management — Guidelines for process description
An increasing number of international, national and industry standards describe process models. These models are developed for a range of purposes including process implementation and assessment. The terms and descriptions used in such models vary in format, content and level of prescription. ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007 presents guidelines for the elements used most frequently in describing a process: the title, purpose statement, outcomes, activities and tasks. Whilst the primary purpose of ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007 is to encourage consistency in standard process reference models, the guidelines it provides may be applied to any process model developed for any purpose.
Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Gestion du cycle de vie — Lignes directrices pour la description des procédés
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Standards Content (Sample)
TECHNICAL ISO/IEC
REPORT TR
24774
First edition
2007-09-01
Software and systems engineering — Life
cycle management — Guidelines for
process description
Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Gestion du cycle de vie —
Lignes directrices pour la description des procédés
Reference number
ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2007
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ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
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ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of
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
technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental
and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information
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/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
In exceptional circumstances, the joint technical committee may propose the publication of a Technical Report
of one of the following types:
⎯ type 1, when the required support cannot be obtained for the publication of an International Standard,
despite repeated efforts;
⎯ type 2, when the subject is still under technical development or where for any other reason there is the
future but not immediate possibility of an agreement on an International Standard;
⎯ type 3, when the joint technical committee has collected data of a different kind from that which is
normally published as an International Standard (“state of the art”, for example).
Technical Reports of types 1 and 2 are subject to review within three years of publication, to decide whether
they can be transformed into International Standards. Technical Reports of type 3 do not necessarily have to
be reviewed until the data they provide are considered to be no longer valid or useful.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC TR 24774, which is a Technical Report of type 3, was prepared by Joint Technical Committee
ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 7, Software and systems engineering.
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ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
Introduction
A number of international, national and industry standards describe process reference models. The process
descriptions used in such models vary in format, content and level of prescription. The purpose of this
Technical Report is to encourage uniformity in the description of processes. Uniform description of processes
across process reference models allows the combination of processes from different reference models, eases
the development of new models and facilitates comparison of models.
In order for future standards and revisions of current standards to select the appropriate forms of process
description and apply them in a consistent fashion, it is desirable to develop a common characterization of all
of these forms of process description. This Technical Report presents guidelines for the description of
processes in terms of their format, content and level of prescription.
The guidelines in this Technical Report can be applied to any process model developed for any purpose. They
have been made publicly available as a Technical Report with the intention of establishing a uniform
description of processes across all process models, from all sources, for all purposes.
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TECHNICAL REPORT ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
Software and systems engineering — Life cycle management —
Guidelines for process description
1 Scope
This Technical Report provides guidelines for the description of processes by identifying descriptive attributes
and rules for their formulation. It characterizes the following attributes of process description:
⎯ title;
⎯ purpose;
⎯ outcomes;
⎯ activities;
⎯ tasks.
This Technical Report does not describe how processes are composed or otherwise aggregated into larger
frameworks or architectures.
NOTE Future work may set out rules for guiding standards developers in formulating the definition, scope, granularity,
decomposition, scale and number of processes.
The intended audience for this Technical Report is the editors, working group members, reviewers and other
participants in the development of process standards and technical reports. It is intended that they will select
the process description attributes suitable for their project from those described in this Technical Report. It is
further intended that, having selected the appropriate attributes, readers of this Technical Report will apply
them in a manner consistent with the guidance provided by this Technical Report.
This Technical Report is also intended for use by all parties that define process models. For example, other
international standards groups, national standards, sector or special interest groups, professional standards,
researchers and process assessors. These process models may be for the purpose of process definition,
implementation or assessment.
2 Background
Within the International Standards arena, the definition of life cycle processes for systems and software falls
within the scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 7. The existing International Standards in this area are
ISO/IEC 12207, Information technology — Software life cycle processes, and ISO/IEC 15288, Systems
engineering — System life cycle processes. Other International Standards, such as ISO/IEC 15939, Systems
and software engineering — Measurement process, and ISO/IEC 16085, Systems and software
engineering — Life cycle processes — Risk management, provide further characterization of a single life cycle
process by elaborating the process attributes and levying specific requirements on the execution of the
process. The decomposition is described by use of the activity attribute. When instantiated for an organization
or project, other details are added (entrance/exit criteria, actors, artefacts).
The assessment of process capability falls within the scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 10. The existing
International Standard in this area is ISO/IEC 15504-2, Information technology — Process assessment —
Part 2: Performing an assessment. ISO/IEC 15504-2 provides requirements for assessing capability of
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ISO/IEC TR 24774:2007(E)
processes defined in external process models; processes may be assessed providing there is a description of
them in terms of title, purpose and outcomes and the description satisfies the criteria for a “process reference
model” as stated in ISO/IEC 15504-2.
NOTE 1 In addition to the attributes described in this Technical Report, ISO/IEC 15504 defines and uses the attribute
Work Product. A work product is an artefact associated with the execution of a process (ISO 9000). There are four generic
product categories as follows: services (e.g. operation); software (e.g. computer program, documents, information,
contents); hardware (e.g. computer, device); processed materials.
NOTE 2 In addition to the attributes described in this Technical Report, ISO/IEC 15504 defines and uses the attribute
Assessment Indicator. An assessment indicator is a source of objective evidence used to support an assessor’s
judgement in rating process attributes. Examples include work products, practices and resources.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 19 covers the fields of Open Distributed Processing and Modelling Languages. The
International Standards developed in that working group provide notations that may be useful in detailed
process description for other purposes.
The goals and objectives of performing a process can be described by using the attributes of title, purpose
and outcomes. These attributes are used to describe intended results without the necessity of performing
structural decomposition of the process. Processes defined using title, purpose and outcomes provide a
common starting point for process implementation and process assessment.
Not all attributes need to be treated in all standards. Some standards will treat only process title, purpose and
outcomes, leaving the activities for further elaboration by other standards.
3 Characterizing the attributes
3.1 Introduction
To enable uniform description additional characterization of the attributes is helpful. The remainder of this
Technical Report provides that characterization.
The process attributes to be used by International Standards developed by SC 7 are as follows.
⎯ The title conveys the scope of the process as a whole.
⎯ The purpose describes the goal of performing the process.
⎯ The outcomes express the observable results expected from the successful performance of the process.
⎯ The activities are a list of actions that may be used to achieve the outcomes. Each activity may be further
elaborated as a grouping of related lower
...
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