SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability determination) is an international framework for assessment of software processes developed jointly by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission).
SPICE is specified in ISO/IEC 15504.
The SPICE standard seeks to describe the preferred order in which activities should occur in a software development project, with particular emphasis on an organization’s management and process definition structures.
The ultimate goal of ISO/IEC 15504 is to achieve process improvement within a technology organization, based on rigorous definition of objectives and programs to help attain them.
SPICE ISO/IEC 15504 comprises a guide to performing an assessment for software development projects. It includes a description of this assessment process, a model for performing an assessment, a description of tools that may be used as part of the assessment process and a discussion of factors that contribute to the success of such an assessment.
SPICE is organized around a reference model that is divided into two dimensions: a process dimension and a capability dimension.
Processes are divided into five categories: customer-supplier, engineering, supporting, management and organization. Processes are also defined as to capability levels numbered from 0 to 5, where 0 describes an incomplete process, 1 a performed process, and so on, with 5 equating to an optimizing process.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers SPICE Training, a 2-day course designed for providing IT professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to conduct software process assessments.
In this course, discover all you need to know to effectively use SPICE, joint effort by the ISO and IEC to create an international standard for software process assessment.
Participants learn to develop a working draft for a standard for software process assessment, conduct industry trials of the emerging standard, and promote the technology transfer of software process assessment into the software industry worldwide.
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