BS ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085:2021

What is ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 about?   

ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085: 

• Provides risk management elaborations for the processes described in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 
• Provides the users of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 and their associated elaboration standards with common terminology and specialized guidance for performing risk management within the context of systems and software engineering projects 
• Specifies the required information items that are to be produced through the implementation of the risk management process for claiming conformance 
• Specifies the required contents of the information items 

ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 provides a universally applicable standard for practitioners responsible for managing risks associated with systems and software over their life cycle. ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 is suitable for the management of all risks encountered in any organization or project appropriate to the systems or software projects regardless of context, type of industry, technologies utilized, or organizational structures involved.  

Note: ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 does not provide detailed information about risk management practices, techniques, or tools that are widely available in other publications 

 Who is ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 for?  

 ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 on risk management is useful for:  

• Software project managers 
• Software engineers 
• Safety authorities 
• Software purchasers 

 Why should you use ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085? 

Risk management is a vital process for any organization. Identifying and analysing potential threats to the organization, helps to mitigate the impact of any negative events or changes that could otherwise be disastrous. 

ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 provides requirements for the tasks and activities of the risk management process, consistent with these life cycle process International Standards. ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 provides a definition of the content of the risk management 

plan and risk treatment plan. ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 also provides guidance for how risk management outcomes, activities, and tasks pertaining to other processes. 

 ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 also defines the required purpose, outcomes, tasks, and activities of the risk management process for application to systems and software engineering projects in an integrated manner and produces the information products. ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085 focuses on providing a comprehensive reference for integrating the large and wide variety of processes, practices, techniques, and tools encountered in systems and software engineering projects and other lifecycle activities into a unified approach for risk management, with the purpose of providing effective and efficient risk management while meeting the expectations and requirements of organization and project stakeholders. 

What’s changed since the last update?  

ISO/IEC/IEEE 16085:2021 supersedes BS ISO/IEC 16085:2006, which is withdrawn. The main changes compared to ISO/IEC 16085:2006 are as follows: 

• Use common terminology, common process names, and common process structure with ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017. 
• Improve consistency with ISO 31000:2018, which provides generic principles, frameworks, and processes for managing all forms of risk. 
• Provide specialized guidance for performing risk management within the context of systems and software engineering projects