ISO/IEC TR 15504 provides a framework for the assessment of software processes. This framework can be used by organizations involved in planning, managing, monitoring, controlling, and improving the acquisition, supply, development, operation, evolution and support of software.

ISO/IEC TR 15504 provides a structured approach for the assessment of software processes for the following purposes:

• by or on behalf of an organization with the objective of understanding the state of its own processes for process improvement;
• by or on behalf of an organization with the objective of determining the suitability of its own processes for a particular requirement or class of requirements;
• by or on behalf of one organization with the objective of determining the suitability of another organization's processes for a particular contract or class of contracts.

Process assessment has two principal contexts for its use:

• for process assessment and
• for process capability determination

Within a process improvement context, process assessment provides the means of characterizing the current practice within an organizational unit in terms of the capability of the selected processes. Analysis of the results in the light of the organization's business needs identifies strengths, weaknesses and risks inherent in the processes. This, in turn, leads to the ability to determine whether the processes are effective in achieving their goals, and to identify significant causes of poor quality, or overruns in time or cost. These provide the drivers for prioritizing improvements to processes.

Process capability determination is concerned with analysing the proposed capability of selected processes against a target process capability profile in order to identify the risks involved in undertaking a project using the selected processes. The proposed capability may be based on the results of relevant previous process assessments, or may be based on an assessment carried out for the purpose of establishing the proposed capability.