scope:

Purpose

This International Standard identifies the activities and tasks that are necessary to successfully identify, define, select, apply and improve measurement within an overall project or organizational measurement structure. It also provides definitions for measurement terms commonly used within the system and software industries.

This International Standard does not catalogue measures, nor does it provide a recommended set of measures to apply on projects. It does identify a process that supports defining a suitable set of measures that address specific information needs.

Field of application

This International Standard is intended to be used by suppliers and acquirers. Suppliers include personnel performing management, technical and quality management functions in system and software development, maintenance, integration and product support organizations. Acquirers include personnel performing management, technical and quality management functions in procurement and user organizations.

The following are examples of how this International Standard can be used:

• by a supplier to implement a measurement process to address specific project or organizational information requirements;

• by an acquirer (or third-party agents) for evaluating conformance of the supplier's measurement process to this International Standard;

• by an acquirer (or third-party agents) to implement a measurement process to address specific technical and project management information requirements related to the acquisition;

• in a contract between an acquirer and a supplier as a method for defining the process and product measurement information to be exchanged.

Tailoring this International Standard

This International Standard contains a set of activities and tasks that comprise a measurement process that meets the specific needs of organizations, enterprises and projects. The tailoring process consists of modifying the non-normative descriptions of the tasks to achieve the purpose and outcomes of the measurement process. All normative clauses need to be satisfied. New activities and tasks not defined in this International Standard may be added as part of tailoring.

Conformance

Conformance to this International Standard is defined as satisfying the purpose and outcomes of the measurement process and all of the normative clauses within the tasks in Clause 4. Any organization imposing this International Standard as a condition of trade is responsible for specifying and making public all task-specific criteria to be imposed in conjunction with this International Standard.

Throughout this International Standard, "shall" is used to express a provision that is binding on the party that is applying this International Standard, "should" to express a recommendation among other possibilities, and "may" to indicate a course of action permissible within the limits of the International Standard.

It is the responsibility of the organization to maintain appropriate evidence of satisfaction of the normative clauses for the purposes of demonstrating conformance.

Limitations

This International Standard does not assume or prescribe an organizational model for measurement. The user of this International Standard should decide, for example, whether a separate measurement function is necessary within the organization and whether the measurement function should be integrated within individual projects or across projects, based on the current organizational structure, culture and prevailing constraints.

This International Standard is not intended to prescribe the name, format or explicit content of the documentation to be produced. This International Standard does not imply that documents be packaged or combined in some fashion. These decisions are left to the user of this International Standard.

The measurement process should be appropriately integrated with the organizational quality system. Not all aspects of internal audits and non-compliance reporting are covered explicitly in this International Standard as they are assumed to be in the domain of the quality system.

This International Standard is not intended to conflict with any organizational policies, standards or procedures that are already in place. However, any conflict should be resolved and any overriding conditions and situations need to be cited in writing as exceptions to the application of this International Standard