Key Process Areas in your QMS (ISO 15504, ISO 12207)

In a QMS several types of processes will be needed in order to accomplish your work. 

For a software development company, lots of core processes will be defined (engineering ones) but they are not enough. In the end you'll end with dozens of processes so it's a good idea to organize them in order to allow for some roles (e.g. engineers, project managers) not to get lost while starting. 

So, one of the main issues here is how to do this split between them? Again the main keyword is REUSE. Let's not invent the wheel. 

The key process areas in a Quality Management System can be based on the ISO15504/SPICE process model as well as the ISO12207 Life Cycle Model standards.

According to SPiCE for SPACE (ISO/IEC TR 15504 Conformant Method for the Assessment of Space Software Processes - Part A: SPiCE for SPACE Assessment Model, Issue 1.1 Draft C, 27.07.01, PASCON/WO6-CCN5/TN7A.) the following description is provided for each dimension:

Primary life cycle processes, includes customer-supplier processes and engineering processes. Customer-supplier processes have directly impact on the customer, support development and transition of the software to the customer, and provide for the correct operation and use of the software product and/or service. Engineering processes consists of processes that directly specify, implement, or maintain the software product, its relation to the system, and its customer documentation. In circumstances where the system is composed totally of software, the engineering processes deal only with the construction and maintenance of such software.

Supporting life cycle processes, includes processes that may be employed by any of the other processes (including other supporting processes) at various points in the software life cycle.

Organisation life cycle processes, includes management and organisation processes. Management processes contain practices of a generic nature that may be used by anyone who manages any type of project or process within a software life cycle. Organisation processes establish the business goals of the organisation and manage process, product, and resource assets that, when used by the projects in the organisation, will help the organisation achieve its business goals.

[STANDARD] ISO/IEC 12207 Systems and software engineering -- Software life cycle processes

ISO/IEC 12207 Systems and software engineering -- Software life cycle processes

Quoting:

"ISO/IEC 12207:2008 establishes a common framework for software life cycle processes, with well-defined terminology, that can be referenced by the software industry. It contains processes, activities, and tasks that are to be applied during the acquisition of a software product or service and during the supply, development, operation, maintenance and disposal of software products. Software includes the software portion of firmware.

ISO/IEC 12207:2008 applies to the acquisition of systems and software products and services, to the supply, development, operation, maintenance, and disposal of software products and the software portion of a system, whether performed internally or externally to an organization. Those aspects of system definition needed to provide the context for software products and services are included.

ISO/IEC 12207:2008 also provides a process that can be employed for defining, controlling, and improving software life cycle processes.

The processes, activities and tasks of ISO/IEC 12207:2008 - either alone or in conjunction with ISO/IEC 15288 - may also be applied during the acquisition of a system that contains software."

Quoting wikipedia:

"The ISO/IEC 12207 Systems and software engineering – Software life cycle processes is an international standard for software lifecycle processes. It aims to be the standard that defines all the tasks required for developing and maintaining software.

The ISO/IEC 12207 standard establishes a process of lifecycle for software, including processes and activities applied during the acquisition and configuration of the services of the system. Each Process has a set of outcomes associated with it. There are 23 Processes, 95 Activities, 325 Tasks and 224 Outcomes (the new "ISO/IEC 12207:2008 Systems and software engineering – Software life cycle processes" defines 43 system and software processes).
The standard has the main objective of supplying a common structure so that the buyers, suppliers, developers, maintainers, operators, managers and technicians involved with the software development use a common language. This common language is established in the form of well defined processes. The structure of the standard was intended to be conceived in a flexible, modular way so as to be adaptable to the necessities of whoever uses it. The standard is based on two basic principles: modularity and responsibility. Modularity means processes with minimum coupling and maximum cohesion. Responsibility means to establish a responsibility for each process, facilitating the application of the standard in projects where many people can be legally involved.
The set of processes, activities and tasks can be adapted according to the software project. These processes are classified in three types: basic, for support and organizational. The support and organizational processes must exist independently of the organization and the project being executed. The basic processes are instantiated according to the situation."