Professor Claude Y. Laporte, Eng., M. Sc., M. Sc. A.

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This page describes the concept of Profiles, the Generic Profiles and the four Profiles of the Generic Profile Group for VSEs developing software.

Profiles

The core characteristic of the entities targeted by ISO/IEC 29110 is size, however there are other aspects and characteristics of VSEs that may affect profile preparation or selection, such as: Business Models (commercial, contracting, in-house development, etc.); Situational factors (such as criticality, uncertainty environment, etc.); and Risk Levels [1]. Creating one profile for each possible combination of values of the various dimensions introduced above would result in an unmanageable set of profiles. Accordingly VSE’s profiles are grouped in such a way as to be applicable to more than one category. Profile Groups are a collection of profiles which are related either by composition of processes (i.e. activities, tasks), or by capability level, or both [2].

The Generic Profile Group

The Generic Profile Group has been defined [3] as applicable to a vast majority of VSEs that do not develop critical systems or software and have typical situational factors. The Generic Profile Group is a collection of four profiles (Entry, Basic Intermediate, Advanced), providing a progressive approach to satisfying a vast majority of VSEs.

Profile Group	Profile
Generic	Entry
Generic	Basic
Generic	Intermediate
Generic	Advanced

Note: Part 1, Part 3 and Part 5 are available at no cost from ISO: http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html

The set of documents is intended to be used by a VSE to establish processes to implement any development approach or methodology including, e.g., agile, evolutionary, incremental, test driven development, etc. based on the organization or project needs of a VSE.

The Entry Profile

VSEs Targeted by the Entry Profile are VSEs working on small projects (e.g. at most six person-months effort) and for start-up VSEs.

Characteristics of the Targeted VSEs:

Primarily involved in the design and/or coding of minor software package
Do not have significant experience with large software development projects, and so do not attract contract jobs from larger software firms
Personnel often relatively inexperienced
Often lack discipline in product development tasks: focus mostly in coding activities
Lack of tangible process assets
Limited access to investments and loans
May lack credibility and need for a reference (e.g. from a previous customer)
Customers may impose a software development process

Objectives of the Entry Profile

The Entry Profile should provide a foundation for a migration to the Basic Profile Processes.
The Entry Profile could be used by VSEs to help them implement a start-up management process and an implementation process.

The Entry Profile is composed of two processes (see figure below), a Project Management process and a Software Implementation process:

The purpose of the Project Management process is to establish and carry out in a systematic way the tasks of the software implementation project, which allows complying with the project’s objectives in the expected quality, time and cost.
The purpose of the Software Implementation process is the systematic performance of the analysis, design, construction, integration and tests activities for new or modified software products according to the specified requirements.

Processes of the Entry Profile (ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-1: 2012)

Project Management and Software Implementation Objectives of the Entry Profile

Since the Entry Profile has been developed using the Basic Profile (see below), to illustrate was has been added or deleted the following convention is used:

Information added or modified to the Basic Profile is shown in blue while information deleted is shown like this: ~~strike out.~~

The objectives of the Project Management (PM) Process of the Entry profile, listed in ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-1: 2012, are:

Objective ID	Objectives
PM.01	The Project Plan for the execution of the project is developed according to the Statement of Work and reviewed and accepted by the Customer. The tasks and resources necessary to complete the work are sized and estimated.
PM.02	Progress of the project monitored against the Project Plan ~~and recorded in the Progress Status Record. Corrections to remediate problems and deviations from the plan are taken when project targets are not achieved.~~ Closure of the project is performed to get the Customer acceptance documented in the Acceptance Record.
PM.03	The Changes Requests are addressed ~~through their reception and analysis~~. Changes to the software requirements are evaluated for ~~cost, schedule and technical impact.~~ impact.
PM.04	Review meetings with the Work Team and the Customer are held. Agreements are registered and tracked.
PM.05	~~Risks are identified as they develop and during the conduct of the project.~~
PM.06	A software Version Control Strategy is developed. Items of Software Configuration are identified, defined and baselined. Modifications and releases of the items are controlled and made available to the Customer and Work Team. The storage, handling and delivery of the items are controlled. Items of Software Configuration are identified and controlled.
PM.07	Software Quality Assurance is performed to provide assurance that work products and processes comply with the Project Plan and Requirements Specification.

The Project Management Process has the following activities (see figure below

PM.1 Project Planning

PM.2 Project Plan Execution

PM.3 Project Assessment and Control

PM.4 Project Closure

Project Management process diagram of the Entry Profile (ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-1)

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The objectives of the Software Implementation (SI) Process of the Entry profile, listed in ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-1: 2012, are:

Objective ID	Objectives
SI.01	Tasks of the activities are performed through the accomplishment of the current Project Plan.
SI.02	Software requirements and their interfaces are defined, analyzed for correctness and testability, approved by the Customer, ~~baselined~~ and communicated.
SI.03	Software components are identified. Software architectural and detailed design is developed and baselined. It describes the software components and internal and external interfaces of them. Consistency and traceability to software requirements are established.
SI.04	Software components ~~defined by the design~~ are produced. Unit test are ~~defined and~~ performed to verify the consistency with software requirements. ~~and the design. Traceability to the requirements and design are established.~~
SI.05	Software is produced . ~~performing integration of~~ Software Components are integrated and verified using Test Cases and Test Procedures. Results are recorded at the Test Report. Defects are corrected ~~and consistency and traceability to Software Design are established.~~
SI.06	Software configuration is prepared for delivery. A Software Configuration, that meets the Requirements Specification as agreed to with the Customer, which includes user, operation and maintenance documentations is integrated, baselined and stored at the Project Repository. Needs for changes to the Software Configuration are detected and related Change Requests are initiated.
SI.07	Verification and Validation Tasks of all required work products are performed ~~using the defined criteria~~ to achieve consistency among output and input products in each activity. Defects are identified, and corrected; ~~records are stored in the Verification/Validation Results.~~

The Software Implementation Process has the following activities (see figure below)

SI.1 Software Implementation Initiation

SI.2 Software Requirements Analysis

SI.3 Software Component Identification

SI.4 Software Construction

SI.5 Software Integration and Tests

SI.6 Product Delivery

Software Implementation Process Diagram of the Entry Profile (ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-1)

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The Basic Profile

The basic profile describes software development of a single application by a single project team with no special risk or situational factors. The project may be to fulfill an external or internal contract. The internal contract need not be explicit between the project team and their client [1].

To use the Guide ( i.e. Part 5) the VSE needs to fulfil the following entry conditions:

The Basic Profile is composed of two processes (see figure below), a Project Management process and a Software Implementation process:

Project Management and Software Implementation Objectives of the Basic Profile

The objectives of the Project Management (PM) Process of the Basic profile, as listed in ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2: 2011, are:

Project Management process diagram of the Basic Profile (ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2: 2011)

The objectives of the Software Implementation (SI) Process of the Basic profile, as listed in ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2: 2011, are:

The Software Implementation Process has the following activities (see figure below):

Software Implementation Process Diagram of the Basic Profile (ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2: 2011)

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The Intermediate Profile guide describes the management of more than one project in parallel with more than one work team.

The purpose of the Business Management (BM) process is to identify opportunities, evaluate all in-place Agreements or requests from customers for fit with organisational goals and resources, obtain and provide the VSE with the necessary resources to perform all projects, monitor and evaluate all projects, conduct lessons learned to improve the VSE and protect its intellectual property and the security of its assets and information items. The purpose of the Project Management (PM) process is to establish and carry out in a systematic way the Tasks of the software implementation process, which allows complying with the project’s Objectives in the expected quality, time and costs. The purpose of the Software Implementation (SI) process is the systematic performance of the analysis, design, construction, integration and test activities for new or modified software work products according to the specified requirements. The purpose of the Acquisition Management (AM) process is to obtain products and/or services required by the VSE. The execution of the AM process is only required if a product/service needs to be obtained from a supplier by the VSE (i.e. a conditional process).

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The Advanced profile is targeted at VSEs which want to sustain and grow as an independent competitive system and/or software development business.

The Advanced profile has one new process that is not in the Intermediate profile: Software Transition and Disposal process (STD).

The purpose of the Software Transition and Disposal (STD) process is to move the software in an orderly, planned manner into the operational status such that the system is functional and operable in the operational environment of the Customer and to end the existence of a system element or system for a specified intended use, appropriately handle replaced or retired elements, and to properly attend to identify critical disposal needs (e.g. per an agreement, per organisational policy, or for environmental, safety, and security aspects).

The arrow connecting the AM and the STD processses to the other processes are dashed to indicate that these processes are conditional processes.

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To obtain freely available ISO 29110 documents, select the document you want to obtain (see an example below).

Click on the 'downloadled' link (see below). A new page, titled 'Freely Available Standards', will open. Then, identify the ISO 29110 document needed, click on the ISO 29110 document and accept the ISO License Agreement. The document should download automatically.

[1] Laporte, C.Y., Alexandre, S., O’Connor, R., A Software Engineering Lifecycle Standard for Very Small Enterprises, in R.V. O’Connor et al. (Eds.): EuroSPI 2008, CCIS 16, pp. 129–141.

[2] O’Connor, R.V., Laporte, C.Y., Towards the Provision of Assistance for Very Small Entities in Deploying Software Lifecycle Standards, 11th International Conference on Product Focused Software Development and Process Improvement (Profes2010), Hosted by LERO, Ireland, June 21-23, 2010.

[3] ISO/IEC 29110-2-1:2015 Systems and software Engineering - Lifecycle Profiles for Very Small Entities (VSEs) - Part 2-1: Framework and taxonomy. ISO/IEC 29110-2-1:2015

[4] ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2 Software engineering -- Lifecycle profiles for Very Small Entities (VSEs) -- Part 5-1-2: Management and engineering guide: Generic profile group: Basic profile. ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2-2011

Objectives ID	Objectives
PM.01	The Project Plan for the execution of the project is developed according to the Statement of Work and reviewed and accepted by the Customer. The tasks and resources necessary to complete the work are sized and estimated.
PM.02	Progress of the project is monitored against the Project Plan and recorded in the Progress Status Record. Corrections to remediate problems and deviations from the plan are taken when project targets are not achieved. Closure of the project is performed to get the Customer acceptance documented in the Acceptance Record.
PM.03	The Change Requests are addressed through their reception and analysis. Changes to software requirements are evaluated for cost, schedule and technical impact.
PM.04	Review meetings with the Work Team and the Customer are held. Agreements are registered and tracked.
PM.05	Risks are identified as they develop and during the conduct of the project.
PM.06	A software Version Control Strategy is developed. Items of Software Configuration are identified, defined and baselined. Modifications and releases of the items are controlled and made available to the Customer and Work Team. The storage, handling and delivery of the items are controlled.
PM.07	Software Quality Assurance is performed to provide assurance that work products and processes comply with the Project Plan and Requirements Specification.

The Generic Profiles for VSEs Developing Software