This document establishes a common framework for software life cycle processes. Its terminology can be referenced and applied across the software industry. It contains processes, activities and tasks that can be applied during the acquisition of a software system, product, or service and during the supply, development, operation, maintenance, and disposal of software products and services. This is accomplished through the involvement of stakeholders, with the goal of achieving customer satisfaction. This document includes those aspects of system definition needed to provide the context for software systems and services. This document also provides processes that can be employed for defining, controlling, and improving software life cycle processes within an organization or a project.

This document is applicable to one-of-a-kind software systems, software systems for wide commercial or public distribution, and customised, adaptable software systems. Software includes the software portion of firmware. It applies to a complete stand-alone software system and to software systems that are embedded and integrated into larger more complex and complete systems of systems (SoS). The processes, activities, and tasks of this document can also be applied during the acquisition of a system that contains software.

This document applies to the full life cycle of software systems, products, and services, including conception, development, operations, support, and retirement, and to their acquisition and supply, whether performed internally or externally to an organization. The life cycle processes of this document can be applied concurrently, iteratively, and recursively to a software system and incrementally to its elements.

This document can be applied in organizations and software projects using a variety of formal engineering approaches. It is applicable for agile approaches and methods, which are most widely used for software development, sustainment, and maintenance, and which are believed to be more affordable and to deliver usable products more quickly.

This document does not identify or require any specific software life cycle model, development methodology, method, modelling approach, or techniques for selecting a life cycle model for the organization or project and mapping the processes, activities, and tasks in this document into that model. Using engineering judgment to help achieve the desired level of quality is also outside the scope of this document.

This document does not detail information items in terms of name, format, explicit content, and recording media. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15289 identifies the content for life cycle process information items (documentation).