An emerging international standard for software process assessment

In June 1993, an international effort was chartered by ISO/IEC JTCI to develop a standard for software process assessment. An important goal of this effort is to harmonize existing process assessment approaches. One of the risks in fielding such an international standard is that the appearance of a new and potentially incongruous approach to assessment and improvement could undermine or demotivate continued investment in process improvement by the software acquisition and software supplier communities. If the prospective standard can provide an integrating framework while still advancing the state of practice in software process assessment, it will be a very significant and positive accomplishment. This paper describes the current state of this standardization effort and discusses challenges which must be overcome.