SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination

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What is SPICE; A brief description

SPICE stands for Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination. It is an international initiative to develop a Standard for Software Process Assessment. The objective is to assist the software industry to make significant gains in productivity and quality, while at the same time helping purchasers to get better value for money and reduce the risk associated with large software projects and purchases. The standard (ISO 15504) being prepared under supervision of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 WG10 deals with software processes such as development, management, customer support and quality.

There has always been recognised that process assessment can be a strong and effective driver for process improvement. The major focus in using the CMM has been on improvement and most acquirers use assessments as part of a partnership approach with their suppliers, focusing on improvement.

From its inception, it was intended that the SPICE framework would be suitable for use in the primary contexts of process assessment, process improvement and capability determination. Process improvement has the objective of changing or optimising processes for greater effectiveness to achieve gains in product quality and productivity. Capability determination however is concerned with assessing an organisation or project in order to determine risks to the successful outcome of a contract, development or service delivery.

The Assessment Architecture

The assessment framework depends upon an assessment architecture that defines the practices and processes that should be implemented. The process categories covered in the SPICE architecture address five general areas of activity:

Customer-supplier process category (CUS). The customer-supplier process category consists of processes that directly impact the customer, support development and transition of the software to the customer, and provide for its correct operation and use of the software product and/or service.
Engineering process category (ENG). The engineering process category consists of processes that directly specify, implement or maintain the software products, its relation to the system and its customer documentation.
Support process category (SUP). The support process category consists of processes that may be employed by any of the other processes (including other supporting processes) at various points in the software life cycle.
Management process category (MAN). The management process category consists of processes that contain practices of a generic nature that may be used by anyone who manages any type of project or process within a software life cycle.
Organisation process category (ORG). The organisation process category consists of processes that establish the business goals of the organisation and develop process, product and resource assets which, when used by the projects in the organization, help the organisation achieve its business goals.

The practices are addressed by capability levels. The capability levels defined within SPICE are:

0	Incomplete process: The process is not implemented, or fails to achieve its defined process outcomes.
1	Performed process: the implemented process achieves is defined process outcomes.
2	Managed process: the previously defined performed process now delivers work products that fulfil expressed quality requirements within defined timescales and resource needs.
3	Established process: the previously defined managed process are performs using a defined process that is based upon good software engineering principles and is capable of achieving its defined process outcomes.
4	Predictable process: the previously defined established process now performs consistently within defined limits to achieve its defined process outcomes.
5	Optimizing process: the previously defined predictable process now dynamically changes and adapts to effectively meet current future business goals.

The output from an assessment is thus seen as a profile, where the assessment of capability for each level is plotted for each of the process areas and processes. The scope of the assessment is defined at the process level, rather than at the organisational unit level as is the case with methods such as the CMM.

Conducting Assessments

The assessment architecture is one of the key platforms of SPICE; the other is a standardised approach or framework to the performance of an assessment. Central to the effective use of the framework is the concept of a conforming assessment, defined as one which:

is conducted by an assessment team that meets the requirements defined;
uses an assessment process that meets the requirements specified;
is based on a set of practices that include those defined;
uses an assessment instrument that contains the features specified;
provides results in the form of a process profile as defined;
has objective evidence retained that demonstrates that the above conditions have been met according to the standard.

The assessment process is defined within the SPICE documents by clearly documenting the inputs to and outputs from an assessment. These inputs and outputs come from a variety of sources within the document suite, as shown in the figure below.

References

For more information about CMM we recommend the following books, papers and Internet web sites :

BOOKS

K. El Eman, J. Drouin and W. Melo, SPICE The Theory and Practice of Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination,, IEE Computer Society, 1997, ISBN 0-8186-7798-8

M. Craigmly and I. Fletcher, Improving IT effectiveness through software process assessment, Software Quality Journal 2, 257-264 (1993)

Dorling, A., SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination, Software Quality Journal 2, 209-224 (1993)

ISO/IEC Software Process Assessment - Part 1 - 9, DTR (ISO 15504)

PAPERS

Rout, Terence P., SPICE: A Framework for Software Process Assessment, SOFTWARE PROCESS - Improvement and Practice, Pilot Issue, 57-66 (1995)

WEB SITES

http://www-sqi.cit.gu.edu.au/sc7/wg10 Latest work of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7

http://www-sqi.cit.gu.edu.au/spice/ Information on SPICE

http://www.esi.es/ Search on SPICE for more info