ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015

Software and Systems Engineering — Lifecycle Processes — Framework for Product Quality Achievement

The scope of ISO/TS 30103:2015 is to indicate how to apply the life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 to achieve quality in the context of a specific product. It is independent of any tailoring that may be made to modify the generic process descriptions to suit the needs of a particular context. Even after any applicable tailoring, there is a need to apply the resulting process guidance and determine the specific detailed activities, tasks and associated success criteria for each of the process instances needed to deliver the target system. That is the focus of the framework described in ISO/TS 30103:2015. ISO/TS 30103:2015 is applicable to those who use or plan to use ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 on projects dealing with man-made systems, software-intensive systems, software products, and services related to those systems and products, regardless of project scope, product(s), service(s), methodology, size or complexity, those who use or plan to use ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289 on projects dealing with man-made systems, software-intensive systems, software products, and services related to those systems and products, regardless of project scope, product(s), methodology, size or complexity, anyone performing technical processes and tasks, those who are responsible for the technical management of projects concerned with the development of systems, those responsible for performing ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 life cycle processes at a project level, organizations and individuals subcontracting a project management effort, anyone developing systems engineering management documentation to complete technical planning aspects of their project processes, anyone performing systems engineering activities, project managers responsible for staffing projects and identifying competency development needs, anyone developing information items during the application of project and technical processes, and anyone performing project and technical processes to aid in ensuring that the information items developed during these processes conform to ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289.

Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Processus du cycle de vie — Cadre pour la réalisation de la qualité du produit

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 13-Sep-2015
• ICS: 35.080 - Software
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 - Software and systems engineering
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7/WG 7 - Life cycle management
• Current Stage: 9093 - International Standard confirmed
• Completion Date: 21-Dec-2022

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL ISO/IEC TS
SPECIFICATION 30103
First edition
2015-09-15
Software and Systems Engineering —
Lifecycle Processes — Framework for
Product Quality Achievement
Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Processus du cycle de vie —
Cadre pour la réalisation de la qualité du produit
Reference number
ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2015

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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

COPYRIGHT PROTECTED DOCUMENT
© ISO/IEC 2015, Published in Switzerland
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
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ii © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

Contents Page
Foreword .v
Introduction .vi
1 Scope . 1
1.1 Application . 1
1.2 Audience . 2
1.3 Limitations . 2
2 Motivation. 2
3 Terms, definitions and abbreviated terms . 3
4 Quality achievement concepts. 4
4.1 Overview of quality achievement . 4
4.2 Guiding principles and approach . 5
4.3 Localization of quality responsibility . 6
4.3.1 Establishing system element requirements . 6
4.3.2 Identification of process instances . 8
4.4 Creation of process instance descriptions . 8
4.4.1 Establishment of success criteria . 8
4.4.2 Identification of detailed activities and tasks . 9
4.4.3 Process instance descriptions .10
4.5 Consistency with institutional knowledge .11
4.6 Maintenance of content consistency .12
5 Required background concepts .13
5.1 System and Software Concepts .13
5.2 Life cycle concepts .13
5.3 Process concepts .14
5.4 Organizational concepts .14
5.5 Information Item Concepts .14
5.6 Notion of technical management .14
6 Context of application .14
6.1 Relationship to other standards.14
6.2 Organizational context .16
6.3 Stakeholder context .16
6.4 Stage context .16
6.5 Process context .16
6.6 Information item context .17
7 Potential process augmentations .17
7.1 Project planning process .17
7.2 Project assessment and control process .17
8 Guidelines for process augmentations .17
8.1 Project planning process .17
8.2 Project assessment and control process .18
9 Potential information item augmentations .18
9.1 Process Instance Descriptions .18
9.2 Consistency tracker .18
10 Guidelines for information item augmentations .19
10.1 Process instance descriptions .19
10.2 Consistency tracker .19
Annex A (informative) Example: Establishing System Element Requirements.20
Annex B (informative) Example: Creation of Process Instance Descriptions.23
Annex C (informative) Example: Consistency Tracker .27
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

Annex D (informative) Example: Process View for Specific Requirement.28
Annex E (informative) Theoretical Foundations .34
Annex F (informative) Example Set of Mutual Consistency Relationships .37
Bibliography .38
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(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.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
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. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the
Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: Foreword - Supplementary information
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, SC 7, Software
and Systems Engineering.
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

Introduction
[1]
This Technical Specification provides guidance on the application of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008
life cycle processes with specific reference to addressing quality in projects that deliver systems and
software products and services. It focuses on a systematic approach to achieving quality, involving the
development of certain information items, the inter-relationships between these information items
and the maintenance and mutual consistency management of these information items. In particular,
it describes how to develop detailed specifications of the collection of process instances needed to
produce a specific product or system and achieve its quality goals. It describes how the guidance in
life cycle process standards may be applied in conjunction with other standards (such as the ISO/IEC
[12]
25000 SQuaRE series of standards that address the specification, measurement and evaluation of
product quality) to achieve quality during the development of a specific system.
Application of life cycle processes to develop a system involves the production of, among others, a
collection of information items such as stakeholder requirements, system requirements, designs, plans,
and technical strategies, as well as a collection of artefacts including the various system elements and
enabling systems. The guidance in this Technical Specification is based on the following principles:
— Localization of quality responsibility: Requirements should be established for each system
element and enabling system, derived from the overall system requirements; the set of process
instances needed to develop each system element or enabling system should be identified; their
responsibilities towards quality are demarcated by the outcomes defined for the corresponding life
cycle process in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288;
— Creation of process instance descriptions: For each process instance, success criteria should be
established based on the outcomes defined for the corresponding life cycle process, the characteristics
and requirements of the particular system element, and requirements and constraints arising
from product decisions made in other process instances; the set of specific tasks and associated
competencies needed to achieve these success criteria should be identified, particularly for system
elements with significant quality risk;
— Consistency with institutional knowledge: Achievement of quality ultimately depends on
correct technical decisions. Relevant institutional knowledge should be systematically identified
and deployed for making product and process decisions, and the resulting information items and
artefacts should be checked for consistency with the applicable bodies of institutional knowledge;
— Maintenance of content consistency: All the information items, including the process instance
specifications themselves, may evolve concurrently throughout the development life cycle. Content
consistency relationships among the various information items and artefacts should be tracked and
managed as these information items and artefacts evolve concurrently.
The Technical Specification is applicable to any project involving the development, enhancement or
re-engineering of systems with hardware, software and human elements. It is particularly useful to
project organizations that operate in multiple application domains where the set of critical quality
characteristics varies widely across projects, requiring a more systematic and detailed approach to
planning the achievement of quality during the development stage of the system life cycle.
This Technical Specification is intended to provide guidance for two-party situations and may be
equally applied where the two parties are from the same organization. This Technical Specification
can also be used by a single party as self-imposed tasks. This Technical Specification can also serve
as guidance in multi-party situations, where high risks are inherent in the supply and integration of
complex systems, and procurement can involve several suppliers, organizations or contracting parties.
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)
Software and Systems Engineering — Lifecycle Processes
— Framework for Product Quality Achievement
1 Scope
1.1 Application
This Technical Specification provides guidance on
[1]
— applying processes from ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 in conjunction with other standards
to contribute to achieving quality of systems and software products and services during the
development stage of the life cycle (6.4),
— the information items that should be produced through the implementation of the relevant
processes (6.5), and
— the new information items (Clauses 9 and 10).
The scope of this Technical Specification is to indicate how to apply the life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/
IEEE 15288:2008 to achieve quality in the context of a specific product. It is independent of any tailoring
that may be made to modify the generic process descriptions to suit the needs of a particular context.
Even after any applicable tailoring, there is a need to apply the resulting process guidance and
determine the specific detailed activities, tasks and associated success criteria for each of the process
instances needed to deliver the target system. That is the focus of the framework described in this
Technical Specification.
This Technical Specification is applicable to
— those who use or plan to use ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 on projects dealing with man-made systems,
software-intensive systems, software products, and services related to those systems and products,
regardless of project scope, product(s), service(s), methodology, size or complexity,
[5]
— those who use or plan to use ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289 on projects dealing with man-made systems,
software-intensive systems, software products, and services related to those systems and products,
regardless of project scope, product(s), methodology, size or complexity,
— anyone performing technical processes and tasks,
— those who are responsible for the technical management of projects concerned with the
development of systems,
— those responsible for performing ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 life cycle processes at a project level,
— organizations and individuals subcontracting a project management effort,
— anyone developing systems engineering management documentation to complete technical planning
aspects of their project processes,
— anyone performing systems engineering activities,
— project managers responsible for staffing projects and identifying competency development needs,
— anyone developing information items during the application of project and technical processes, and
— anyone performing project and technical processes to aid in ensuring that the information items
developed during these processes conform to ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289.
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

1.2 Audience
The guidance in this Technical Specification is intended to be used in the development and maintenance
stages of the life cycle by all organizations and projects that develop or maintain systems and software
products and services. It is of particular value to organizations that work in a variety of application
domains, where the set of critical quality characteristics and approaches to achieve them vary widely
across projects.
1.3 Limitations
The achievement of quality ultimately depends on the competent performance of technical and
management tasks. While this Technical Specification provides guidance on a systematic approach to
quality achievement, including identification of needed competencies, the use of the approach alone is
not sufficient to guarantee achievement of quality.
This Technical Specification provides guidance on developing detailed specifications of the collection of
process instances needed to develop the product or service including the artefact-specific tasks within
each process instance, but it does not address sequencing and information flow issues among these
[8]
tasks and processes. The area of situational method engineering addresses the problem of organizing
the collection of tasks into a network with defined information flow patterns.
Tradeoffs among quality attributes are intentionally not addressed. Tradeoffs are part of the enactment
of requirements, design, planning and other processes. Any iteration needed to address tradeoffs is part
of concurrent elaboration. Consistency relationships must hold among information items and artefacts
after tradeoffs have been made. Guidance on tradeoffs is not provided to avoid over-prescription.
The approach described herein is applicable to design and realization of services and service delivery
systems. However, the achievement of service quality also depends on management of quality during
interactive service delivery, and this approach does not address that aspect of service quality.
2 Motivation
ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2008 establishes a common framework for describing the life cycle of systems
created by humans. It defines a set of processes and associated terminology. These processes can be
applied at a project level and guidance is provided on the outcomes, activities and tasks needed to
achieve quality.
These processes are intentionally defined to be product-agnostic so that they can be widely applicable
[2]
to all projects involving systems and software products and services. ISO/IEC TR 24748-1 ,
[3] [11]
ISO/IEC TR 24748-2 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 provide guidance on the application of these life
cycle processes to a specific system, indicating that multiple recursive instances of each life cycle
process may be needed corresponding to system elements at each hierarchical level of the system, and
that multiple iterative instances may be needed to deal with dependencies and changes.
When applying the guidance from these standards to develop a specific system, there are challenges that
can potentially lead to gaps in quality achievement which may not be detected until late in the life cycle.
— All the specific tasks needed to develop each artefact associated with each system element and
enabling system must be identified. While the list of activities and tasks in each life cycle process
provides a starting point, the specific tasks to be performed depend on the requirements and
characteristics of the target system element. Any omissions in identifying the right set of specific
tasks will lead to defects that may not be detected until late in the life cycle.
— The product decisions made in various process instances need to be mutually consistent. The
decisions in some information items and artefacts impose requirements and constraints on others.
Mutual consistency relationships among deliverables must be maintained as they evolve during the
concurrent enactment of the various process instances. Gaps arise if changes are not propagated
consistently among artefacts.
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

— Quality achievement depends on the right technical decisions being taken. There is considerable
institutional knowledge from standards and other sources that can guide these technical decisions,
but there are often gaps in identification and application of the relevant technical knowledge.
This Technical Specification closes these potential gaps, describing in detail how the life cycle processes
may be used to achieve quality for a specific system.
3 Terms, definitions and abbreviated terms
3.1
concurrent elaboration
life cycle process instances are enacted concurrently during the project, and the information items and
artefacts produced by these process instances evolve concurrently
Note 1 to entry: This is referred to as concurrent elaboration of information items.
3.2
content consistency
semantic consistency among the contents of information items
3.3
information item
separately identifiable body of information that is produced, stored, and delivered for human use
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289]
3.4
institutional knowledge
knowledge from accepted sources, including standards, academic sources, domain and industry bodies
of knowledge and organizational knowledge
3.5
instantiation
identification, for each instance of a life cycle process, of the success criteria, artefact-specific activities
and tasks needed to achieve the process outcomes, and the competencies needed to perform these
tasks, based on the characteristics and requirements of the target system element
Note 1 to entry: This is referred to as instantiation of the life cycle processes for a specific system, product or service.
3.6
locality of quality responsibility
assignment of responsibility for specific quality-related requirements or decompositions thereof to a
particular process instance
3.7
process instance
single specific and identifiable execution of a process
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 33001:2015, 3.2.17]
Note 1 to entry: It is the result of instantiation of life cycle processes for a specific system, product or service.
3.8
quality responsibility
responsibility for achievement of a quality requirement or decomposition thereof
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ISO/IEC TS 30103:2015(E)

3.9
success criteria
set of conditions to be satisfied by a process instance at completion
Note 1 to entry: Information items and artefacts produced by the process instance must meet the success criteria.
Success criteria are established based on the outcomes of the corresponding life cycle process, requirements of
the system element to which the process instance contributes, and requirements and constraints arising from
decisions in other process instances.
4 Quality achievement concepts
4.1 Overview of quality achievement
Figure 1 shows an overview of the relationships between the process and product decisions related
to quality achievement in a project. Product decisions for a project include, among others, the system
requirements, design, realization technologies, as well as verification, integration, validation, transition
and measurement strategies. Process decisions include identification of the specific tasks needed
to achieve quality for the specific system, as well as the practices, tools and technical management
approach. The process decisions are influenced by previous product decisions, and in turn generate
further product decisions.
The figure indicates the life cycle process standards that provide guidance on process decisions, and
some of the standards that provide guidance on product decisions. There are also other standards
that provide guidance on product and process decisions related to particular quality characteristics or
application domains, such as security, safety and automotive standards.
Process decisions Product decisions
Stakeholder
25010,
Quality
requirements
25012
characteristics
deinition
29148
Requirements System
25030
analysis requirements
Architectural Architecture
42010
design description
Implementation
Veriication &
& integration
validation strategy
29119
and enabling
Veriication,
systems
validation &
15026
assurance
Transition strategy
Transition
2502x,
Measurement &
2504x
Measurement evaluation strategy
15939
“Produce”“Inluence”
Figure 1 — Overview of quality achievement
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It should be noted that the lines in the above diagram represent informational and generative
relationships, not control flows. Life cycle processes are typically enacted concurrently and iteratively,
so that the various product-related decisions and the related process decisions evolve continuously
throughout the project. In general, it cannot be assumed either that the process decisions are all frozen
prior to enactment of that process, or that information items and artefacts are produced sequentially. In
complex projects, all of these evolve continuously and concurrently, and the consistency relationships
among them must be managed.
4.2 Guiding principles and approach
The approach to quality achievement described herein incorporates four principles.
— Localization of quality responsibility: Quality requirements should be established for each
system element and enabling system (h
...