Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination

ISO/IEC 15504 Information technology – Process assessment, also termed Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (SPICE), is a set of technical standards documents for the computer software development process and related business management functions. It is one of the joint International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards, which was developed by the ISO and IEC joint subcommittee, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7.

ISO/IEC 15504 was initially derived from process lifecycle standard ISO/IEC 12207 and from maturity models like Bootstrap, Trillium and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).

ISO/IEC 15504 has been revised by: ISO/IEC 33001:2015 Information technology – Process assessment – Concepts and terminology as of March, 2015 and is no longer available at ISO.

ISO/IEC 15504 is the reference model for the maturity models (consisting of capability levels which in turn consist of the process attributes and further consist of generic practices) against which the assessors can place the evidence that they collect during their assessment, so that the assessors can give an overall determination of the organization's capabilities for delivering products (software, systems, and IT services).

A working group was formed in 1993 to draft the international standard and used the acronym SPICE. SPICE initially stood for Software Process Improvement and Capability Evaluation, but in consideration of French concerns over the meaning of evaluation, SPICE has now been renamed Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination. SPICE is still used for the user group of the standard, and the title for the annual conference. The first SPICE was held in Limerick, Ireland in 2000, SPICE 2003 was hosted by ESA in the Netherlands, SPICE 2004 was hosted in Portugal, SPICE 2005 in Austria, SPICE 2006 in Luxembourg, SPICE 2007 in South Korea, SPICE 2008 in Nuremberg, Germany and SPICE 2009 in Helsinki, Finland.

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