An Introduction to the Documents

Overview
The SPICE Suite of documents provides a framework for the assessment of software processes. This framework can be used by organizations involved in planning, managing, monitoring, controlling, and improving the acquisition, supply, development, operation, evolution and support of software.

The document suite provides a structured approach for the assessment of software processes for the following purposes:

• by or on behalf of an organization to improve its own processes;
• by or on behalf of an organization to determine its capability for a particular (class of) requirement;
• by an acquirer to determine a supplier's capability for a particular (class of) requirement.

The framework for process assessment:

• facilitates self-assessment;
• takes account of the context of the process being assessed;
• produces a process rating profile rather than a pass/fail result;
• addresses the adequacy of practices relative to the process purpose;
• is appropriate across all application domains and sizes of organization.

The sophistication and complexity required of a process is dependent upon its context. For instance the planning required for a five person project team is much less than for a fifty person team. This context influences how a qualified assessor judges a practice when assessing its adequacy and influences the degree of comparability between process profiles.

The process assessment framework is based on assessing a specific process instance. A process instance is a singular instantiation of a process that is uniquely identifiable and about which information can be gathered in a manner that provides repeatable ratings. Each process instance is characterized by a set of five process capability level ratings, each of which is an aggregation of the practice adequacy ratings that belong to that level. Hence the practice adequacy ratings are the foundation for the rating system.

Practice adequacy is a rating of the extent to which a practice meets its purpose as defined in part 2 of the SPICE suite. The suite therefore provides a rating framework that is as much an assessment of effectiveness as it is of conformance to the practice definition. From the ratings of process instances, a number of derived or average ratings can be determined that provide better insight into the capability of a process within an organizational unit as a whole.

Field of Application
Within a process improvement context, process assessment provides the means of characterizing the current practice within an organizational unit in terms of the capability of the selected processes. Analysis of the results in the light of the organization's business needs identifies strengths, weakness and risks inherent in the processes. This, in turn, leads to the ability to determine whether the processes are effective in achieving their goals, and to identify significantcauses of poor quality, or over runs in time or cost. These provide the drivers for prioritizing improvements to processes.

Process capability determination is concerned with analysing the proposed capability of selected processes against a target process capability profile in order to identify the risks involved in undertaking a project using the selected processes. The proposed capability may be based on the results of relevant previous process assessments, or may be based on an assessment carried out for the purpose of establishing the proposed capability.

Two of the parts of the SPICE suite (parts 7 and 8) address the use of process assessment for process improvement or for process capability determination. Other documents in the suite address various aspects relating to process assessment.

Software Process Assessment
The SPICE suite has been designed to satisfy the needs of acquirers, suppliers and assessors, and their individual requirements from within a single source.

The benefits arising from the use of this suite of documents include:

For acquirers:

• an ability to determine the current and potential capability of a supplier's software processes.

For suppliers:

• an ability to determine the current and potential capability of their own software processes;
• an ability to define areas and priorities for software process improvement;
• a framework that defines a road map for software process improvement.

For assessors:

• a framework that defines all aspects of conducting assessments.

Components of the SPICE document set
The SPICE suite, in its final consolidated form, is comprised of nine parts. This section describes each of the parts and its role within the Suite. Clicking on a component in the diagram below will take a shortcut to its description.

Part 1 is an entry point into the SPICE document set. It describes how the parts of the suite fit together, and provides guidance for their selection and use. It explains the requirements contained within the Standard and their applicability to the conduct of an assessment, to the construction and selection of supporting tools, and to the construction of extended processes. Extended processes are processes which include base practices additional to those defined in the part 2 of the Standard, or which are entirely new processes, for example to meet industry specific requirements.

Part 2 of the SPICE document set defines, at a high level, the fundamental activities that are essential to software engineering, structured according to increasing levels of process capability. These baseline practices may be extended, through the generation of application or sector specific practice guides, to take account of specific industry, sector or other requirements.

Part 3 of the SPICE document set defines a framework for conducting an assessment, and sets out the basis for rating, scoring and profiling process capabilities.

Part 4 of the SPICE document set provides guidance on the conduct of software process assessments. This guidance is generic enough to be applicable across all organizations, and also for performing assessments using a variety of different methods and techniques, and supported by a range of tools.

Part 5 of the SPICE document set defines the framework elements required to construct an instrument to assist an assessor in the performance of an assessment. In addition, it provides guidance to acquirers or designers on the selection and usability aspects of various types of assessment instruments.

Part 6 of the SPICE document set describes the competence, education, training and experience of assessors that are relevant to conducting process assessments. It describes mechanisms that may be used to demonstrate competence and to validate education, training and experience.

Part 7 of the SPICE document set describes how to define the inputs to and use the results of an assessment for the purposes of process improvement. The guide includes examples of the application of process improvement in a variety of situations.

Part 8 of the SPICE document set describes how to define the inputs to and use the results of an assessment for the purpose of process capability determination. It addresses process capability determination in both straightforward situations and in more complex situations involving constructed or future capability. The guidance on conducting process capability determination is applicable either for use within an organization to determine its own capability, or by an acquirer to determine the capability of a (potential) supplier.

Part 9 is a consolidated vocabulary of all terms specifically defined for the purposes of the SPICE document set.

Relationship to other International Standards
The SPICE suite is complementary to several other International Standards and other models for evaluating the capability and effectiveness of organizations and processes. This section describes the relationship between the suite and the major related International Standards.
The SPICE suite incorporates the intent of ISO 9000 to provide confidence in a supplier's quality management whilst providing acquirers with a framework for assessing whether potential suppliers have the capability to meet their needs in a comparable and repeatable way. Process assessment provides users with the ability to evaluate process capability on a continuous scale, rather than using the pass/fail characteristic of quality audits based on ISO 9000. In addition, the framework described in this suite provides the opportunity to adjust the scope of assessment to cover specific processes of interest, rather than all of the processes used by an organizational unit.
The SPICE suite is related in particular to the following components of the ISO 9000 series
ISO 9001 - 1994, Model for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Servicing;
ISO 9000-3 - 1991, Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standards - Part 3: Guidelines for the Application of ISO 9001 to the development, supply and maintenance of software;
ISO 9004-4 - 1993, Quality management and quality system elements - Part 4: Guidelines for quality improvement.
The SPICE suite, and particularly part 2, is strongly related to:
ISO DIS 12207-1 - 1994, Software Life Cycle Process.
Where software-based tools are developed or used to support assessments their conformance to the requirements of part 5 of the suite may be evaluated following the requirements of:
ISO DIS 12119-1995, Software products - evaluation and test.

Finding out more about SPICE
Within this Web node, you can find out more about the SPICE Framework for performing assessments. There is also information about the SPICE model for Assessor Training and Qualification, and about the two contexts for use of the SPICE suite - Process Improvement and Process Capability Determination . Information on the requirements for a conformant SPICE Assessment, and a conformant Assessment Instrument, are also provided.