This document establishes a common framework for software life cycle processes, with well‐defined terminology,
that can be referenced by the software industry. It contains processes, activities, and tasks that are applicable
during the acquisition, supply, development, operation, maintenance or disposal of software systems, products,
and services. These life cycle processes are accomplished through the involvement of stakeholders, with the
ultimate goal of achieving customer satisfaction.
This document applies to the acquisition, supply, development, operation, maintenance, and disposal (whether
performed internally or externally to an organization) of software systems, products and services, and the
software portion of any system, Software includes the software portion of firmware. Those aspects of system
definition needed to provide the context for software products and services are included.
This document also provides processes that can be employed for defining, controlling, and improving software life
cycle processes within an organization or a project.
The processes, activities, and tasks of this document can also be applied during the acquisition of a system that
contains software, either alone or in conjunction with ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015, Systems and software
engineering—System life cycle processes.
In the context of this document and ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, there is a continuum of human‐made systems from
those that use little or no software to those in which software is the primary interest. It is rare to encounter a
complex system without software, and all software systems require physical system components (hardware) to
operate, either as part of the software system‐of‐interest or as an enabling system or infrastructure. Thus, the
choice of whether to apply this document for the software life cycle processes, or ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015,
Systems and software engineering—System life cycle processes, depends on the system‐of‐interest. Processes in
both documents have the same process purpose and process outcomes, but differ in activities and tasks to
perform software engineering or systems engineering, respectively.