A Software Engineering Lifecycle Standard for Very Small Enterprises

Industry recognizes that very small enterprises (VSE), that develop parts having software components, are very important to the economy. These parts are often integrated in products of larger enterprises. Failure to deliver on time, within budget a quality product threatens the competitiveness of both organizations. One way to mitigate these risks is by having all suppliers of a product chain to put in place recognized engineering practices. Many international standards and models like ISO/IEC12207 or CMMI have been developed to capture proven engineering practices. However, these standards were not designed for very small development organizations, those with less than 25 employees, and are consequently difficult to apply in such settings. An ISO/IEC JTC1/SC71 Working Group has been established to address these difficulties by producing a tailored software engineering standard to VSE.