Why the New Software Process Quality Audit & Assurance Maturity Model Matters

The China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) held its TC1 40th plenary meeting and the WG7 IT Internal Control and Audit Technical Standards Working Group’s 3rd session on April 26‑27, 2023. Over ten draft standards were discussed, and the "Software Process Quality Audit and Assurance Capability Maturity Model" was formally proposed and approved for further development.

Standard Introduction

The 2023 "Quality Strong Nation" outline issued by the Central Committee and State Council calls for aligning with international advanced technologies, rules, and standards, promoting a new quality‑management system that is comprehensive, data‑driven, and digitally enabled. It emphasizes accelerating the maturity of quality management and strengthening the application of next‑generation information technologies.

Software is now a foundational pillar of the digital economy, supporting the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse, a network‑strong nation, and a digital China. Consequently, managing and improving software quality has become a priority for the industry.

The "14th Five‑Year Plan" for software and information‑technology services stresses the need to完善质量标准体系,推广先进的质量管理模式和方法,提升软件质量管理能力,并支持软件质量管理工具的研发，以增强企业对软件质量的监控、预警和评价能力。 It also encourages third‑party service providers to enhance capabilities in software security consulting, testing, certification, auditing, and operation‑maintenance.

In the realm of software quality management, software process quality audit and assurance is a key approach to strengthen quality control. It establishes a planned, systematic method to assure that defined standards, steps, practices, and methods are consistently adopted across software projects, providing objective, independent verification that development and operation processes comply with organizational policies, standards, and procedures.

This audit and assurance process makes software processes visible to management, increasing transparency and enabling the identification of improvement targets to raise overall software quality.

Against this backdrop, the Cloud and Big Data Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) leads the drafting of the "Software Process Quality Audit and Assurance Capability Maturity Model" standard, collaborating with industry experts to provide a reference framework for enterprises. The approval of the project at the CCSA TC1 WG7#3 meeting marks the official start of the standard’s development. Interested units and experts are invited to submit their information to [email protected] by May 19, 17:00.

Contact: China Academy of Information and Communications Technology – Liang Ye Phone: 17801066261 Email: [email protected]