ISO/IEC 23531:2020

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 23531
First edition
2020-12
Systems and software engineering —
Capabilities of issue management tools
Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Capacités des outils de
gestion des écarts
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2020
© ISO/IEC 2020
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ii © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative reference . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Object model for issue management tools . 2
4.1 Overview of issue management . 2
4.2 Use case of issue management . 3
4.2.1 Use case. 3
4.2.2 Use case scenarios . 4
4.3 Object model of issue management entity . 9
4.3.1 General. 9
4.3.2 Common entities . 9
4.3.3 Work Management entities .10
4.3.4 Defect Management entities .10
4.3.5 IT Service Management entities .11
4.4 Categories of capability of issue management tool .12
5 Category of issue management entity .13
5.1 Overview .13
5.2 Common entities .13
5.3 Work Management entities .13
5.4 Defect Management entities .13
5.5 IT Service Management entities .13
5.6 Summary of issue management entities .14
6 Capabilities of issue management tools .19
6.1 Overview .19
6.2 Common capabilities .20
6.3 Work management capabilities .23
6.4 Defect management capabilities .24
6.5 IT service management capabilities .25
6.6 Summary of capabilities .27
Annex A (informative) How to use this document with ISO/IEC 20741 .32
Annex B (informative) Overview of the approach for this document .33
Bibliography .36
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved iii

Foreword
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Subcommittee SC 7, Software and systems engineering.
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iv © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

Introduction
Issue management tools have become increasingly important in project management and been applied
to a wide range of lifecycle processes, from development process to operation process. Information
managed by these tools has been expanded further than ever before, such as work items and claims as
well as defects. These tools need to cooperate with many other tools such as configuration management
tools, build tools, etc.
There are many issue management tools on the market but with no clear definition of their category
and their capabilities. Therefore, it is becoming difficult for project managers to choose the right tool.
This document provides a framework of category of issue management tools and a list of their
capabilities. The capabilities are gathered from existing tools (see Annex B). This document is prepared
as one of the capability series to select the appropriate tool in combination with ISO/IEC 20741
"Guideline for the evaluation and selection of software engineering tools" (see Annex A).
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved v

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 23531:2020(E)
Systems and software engineering — Capabilities of issue
management tools
1 Scope
This document defines the capabilities of issue management tools and is used to select the most
appropriate one from many issue management tools. The evaluation and selection of the issue
management tools is performed in accordance with ISO/IEC 20741 which defines the general evaluation
selection process and evaluation characteristics. Issue management is based on the tasks described
in several activities in their processes (e.g. project assessment and control, decision management, and
system/software requirements definition) of ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207.
This document is independent of development methodology or approaches (e.g. Waterfall or Agile) or
lifecycle processes (e.g. implementation or operation).
2 Normative reference
There is no normative reference in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
defect
imperfection or deficiency in a work product where that work product does not meet its requirements
or specifications and needs to be either repaired or replaced
[SOURCE: IEEE 1044:2009, 2]
3.2
incident
anomalous or unexpected event, set of events, condition, or situation at any time during the life cycle of
a project, product, service (3.5), or system
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015, 4.1.21]
3.3
issue
observation that deviates from expectations
EXAMPLE Potential defect (3.1), improvement or point needing clarification.
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 20246:2017, 3.9]
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved 1

3.4
problem
cause of one or more actual or potential incidents (3.4)
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 20000-10:2018, 3.2.10]
3.5
service
means of delivering value for the user by facilitating results the user wants to achieve
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC TS 25011:2017, 3.3.1, modified — Notes 1 and 2 to entry have been removed.]
4 Object model for issue management tools
4.1 Overview of issue management
The overall structure of object model of issue management consists of the following elements:
a) issue management use case; defined in 4.2, a use case for describing issue management as an
integrated activity, building on the activities and tasks described in ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 in
generic way,
b) issue management entity; defined in 4.3 and Clause 5, a set that represents identifiable information
which appears in issue management tasks and described as a class in the object model, and
c) issue management tool; defined Clause 6, a tool that supports creating, referring, updating and
deleting an issue management entity.
Figure 1 — Object model of issue management
The issue management entity comprises multiple entities. A set of entities is created when an issue
occurs, and referred, updated through its life to keep track the status, and archived after closing the
issue. There are two type of entities. One is the information of the issue itself such as issue-ID, date,
2 © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

etc. Another is the relationship information between the issue and the related artifacts such as
requirements specification, source code, etc. The artifacts themselves are not included in this issue
management entity.
The issue management tool takes issue management entities as the input and produces issue
management entities as the output. The issue management tool effectively supports the management
t
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