The Guide discusses the software engineering process as concepts, life cycles, and process assessment, and notes that the community has standardized many aspects of the process. An engineering process is a set of interrelated activities that transform one or more inputs into outputs while consuming resources. Software engineering uses processes similar to those of other kinds of engineering.[1]
No ideal process, or set of processes, exists. Processes must be selected, adapted, and applied for each project and each organization. Process management needs the support of empirical measurement. In this knowledge area, "process" means work activities, not the execution of software.[1]
Life-cycle topics include the definition of a life cycle, process categories and terminology, the difference between process models and life-cycle models, some development life-cycle paradigms, management of software life-cycle processes, and life-cycle adaptation. Assessment and improvement topics include Goal-Question-Metric, framework-based methods, and process assessment and improvement in Agile.[1]
The Guide's top-level topics for this knowledge area are:
- Software Engineering Process Fundamentals
- Life Cycles
- Software Process Assessment and Improvement
Appendix B treats ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017 as the principal software engineering life-cycle process standard and states that it and this Guide both address many of the same life-cycle processes. The appendix also lists ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023, ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-3:2020, ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-5:2017, and ISO/IEC/IEEE 24774:2021.[1]