An architecture for defining the processes of the software and systems life cycles

Attempts to define consistent reference models for systems and software life cycle processes have been hindered by the lack of an acceptable underlying architecture for such models. The use of existing enterprise architecture models is put forward as an appropriate solution to this problem. By assigning processes to identifiable entities in the enterprise model, problems arising from the lack of definition of scope and of the relationship between different processes can be resolved. The use of appropriate enterprise models as the basis for process reference models is proposed as a resolution of the problems associated with the development and application of process reference models for the software engineering domain.