CSA 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 Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) 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). At the time of publication, ISO/IEC 15504-3:2004 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC. This Standard has been formally approved, without modification, by the Technical Committee and has been approved as a National Standard of Canada by the Standards Council of Canada. Scope This part of ISO/IEC 15504 provides guidance on meeting the minimum set of requirements for performing an assessment contained in ISO/IEC 15504-2. It provides an overview of process assessment and interprets the requirements through the provision of guidance on: a) performing an assessment; b) the measurement framework for process capability; c) process reference models and process assessment models; d) selecting and using assessment tools; e) competency of assessors; f) verification of conformity. This document uses the following schema: the text inside a box is quoted from the normative ISO/IEC 15504-2 and the text following a box is guidance about the normative text. If the quoted text includes a clause reference, it is understood that ISO/IEC 15504-2 should be referred to.