Preface Standards development within the Information Technology sector is harmonized with international standards development. Through the CSA Technical Committee on Information Technology (TCIT), Canadians serve as the SCC Mirror Committee (SMC) on ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) for the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the ISO member body for Canada and sponsor of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC. Also, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Canada participates in the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (ITU-T). For brevity, this Standard will be referred to as "CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC 33001" throughout. At the time of publication, ISO/IEC 33001:2015 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA Group will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC. Scope This International Standard provides a repository for key terminology relating to process assessment. It gives overall information on the concepts of process assessment, the application of process assessment for evaluating the achievement of process quality characteristics, and the application of the results of process assessment to the conduct of process management. This International Standard provides an introduction to the ISO/IEC 330xx family of standards for process assessment; it describes how the parts of the family of standards for process assessment fit together and provides guidance for their selection and use. It explains the requirements contained within the suite and their applicability to performing assessments. Readers of this International Standard should familiarize themselves with the terminology and structure of the document suite and then reference the appropriate elements of the suite for the context in which they propose to conduct an assessment. NOTE This International Standard addresses terms used in ISO/IEC 33001 to ISO/IEC 33019 of the ISO/IEC 330xx family, as well as key terms used in other documents in the family. Terms specific to documents from ISO/IEC 33020 to ISO/IEC 33099 are defined in each document.