Help/FAQs
upto25
Upto25 was born from the will to help the improvement of small businesses and to promote the use of the standard IEC / ISO 29110. This standard is designed for this vast majority of organizations in order to improve their processes as a pragmatic and of low cost aid.
upto25 ® it is a registered trademark of Softwcare SL, small company dedicated to software quality with extensive experience in the development and evaluation of critical software and the evaluation and certification of all types of software projects and organizations. Softwcare SL has expert staff who are part of the ISO working group for the elaboration of the IEC / ISO 29110 standard.
upto25 wants to be independent and therefore is governed by a governing board following by-laws. More information on the upto25 structure is provided in the “About us” page.
Welcome to upto25, the web dedicated to the improvement of software, systems, and IT services for small organisms (VSE or Very Small Entity). upto25 is:
- A social network that allowscommunication between VSEs, VSEs customers, certification bodies, assessors, etc. with the aim of providing quality services and products
- A set of guides, tools, news andevents that help VSEs being excellent, achieving their business goals. upto25 VSEs helps improving processes using recognized models and
- A link between the various actorsof the ISO/IEC 29110 standard certification dedicated to
Login in upto25 to be connected, be able to access free resources, and start your journey towards improvement and excellence.
upto25 is concerned about the quality of service we offer and is open to improvement. That is why we thank you for any report of failure or comment regarding your experience in the use and content of this website.
For any comments please contact us and send a message through contact.
upto25, as a private and independent body, is governed by a board of directors following by-laws. The upto25 network is made of members who support and help developing the excellence of the community of interest of this portal. The Governing Board is elected by the members.
To be a member you need to send a written notice to be validated by the Governing Board. A member can choose which category of participation to represent.
Premium VSEs (who pay a small annual fee) are automatically members of the portal.
See detailed membership in the upto25 page.
The name upto25 comes from the definition of VSE, definition created by ISO, and refers to an entity (company, organization, department or project) with no more than 25 people.
Please note that a VSE is not necessarily a company but a group of people who, for example, develop SW products and / or maintain software that can even be used on larger systems. These small teams involve small projects that need a methodology adapted to their needs, which is why the ISO/IEC 29110 standard was created.
Signup
If you have forgotten your password, simply log in and click on “Forgot your password?”
After filling in your username or email we will send you a message to your email with the new password.
In upto25 your email together with the name of your company (but assessors) serves as identification. For each contact with other users of the network always the company name is presented with your logo, never your email. You are responsible for identifying with the real name of your company.
For the password, care must be taken to choose and manage a password carefully and as stipulated in section 2.2. (Your affiliation) of the Terms of Use.
Please do not share your account information with other people and follow our rules and current legislation (see Terms of use).
You need to sign up to access to more content and to take better advantage of the portal, depending on your profile.
Without signing up you can:
- Access to general information about the web,
- know the introductory part to the contents of the web,
- Access the basic Webinars,
- Having helps via the helpdesk.
But you cannot:
- Access the social network with the ability to contact other members who have the same goal as yours but with their own experience. upto25 offers to VSEs, at no cost, a modern tool with messaging, searching, assessment and certification services, and the ability to create and/or participate in discussion groups,
- Having a detailed profile to expose your characteristics and abilities,
- See all the presentations, whitepapers and events/news details,
- Access interactive guides with their detailed explanation, examples and templates,
- Perform self-assessment based on the ISO / IEC 29110 standard (VSEs),
- Access the advanced Webinar.
View and make rates about the content of the web.
When signing up upto25 does not verify if the company you represent is already registered, so it is possible that 2 or more representatives of the same company have an account in upto25. It is also possible that you have signed up more than once with different emails. If you want to unify accounts please contact us to help you transfer all data into one account and close one of the 2.
upto25 allows all type of organization to sign up but always as representative of an official entity. Only an independent assessor can sign up as an individual.
upto25 is dedicated to the improvement and certification of the VSE, so we have defined 3 types of profiles (VSE, Evaluator and Certification Body).
Of course a larger company or any individual who has an interest in this topic can sign up, for example:
- VSE customers,
- Federations or associations representing VSEs,
- Groups of countries / User Groups / Community interest,
- Standard / committee organisms,
- Institutes and agencies,
- Government and public authorities.
In this case you have to sign up with the VSE profile but filling your specific data (type of industry, size of your company, etc.)
Profile
Your password is vital for the security of your account. We recommend you change it every month with a mix of capital letters, lowercase letters and numbers and an impersonal password and a different one that you other accounts on the web. Never share your password with others.
Your privacy is important for us. We have developed a privacy policy to be as clear and direct as possible. It can be accessed from each page of this website and contains details about the information we collect, how we use it and your options and obligations on it.
It is recognized that a photo profile allows you to have more contacts. That is why it is advisable to attach the logo of your company to your profile (or your personal photo if you are an assessor).
To add a photo to your profile click on ‘my profile’, then ‘change logo’ and follow the instructions.
According to the Terms of Use, it is prohibited to use an image, a logo or a personal photo that is not the one of your company or does not look like you. upto25 is allowed to delete a photo if it does not comply with our user agreement.
The more complete your profile is, the better we can offer you our services e.g. other users can find you correctly or we can offer you resources adapted to your size or your type of industry. Please complete all fields in the registry as soon as possible.
In upto25 there are three types of profiles (VSE, Evaluator and Certification Body).
For each profile the following fields are defined:
- Company name
- Industry
- Country
- Job Title
- Company information
- Employee Number
- Year of foundation
- Web
- Address
- City
- Company Job Title and contact person.
upto25 is not dedicated to promote, advertise or compare its users / members, but we offer you the possibility to expose your company with the following fields:
- Company information (short presentation of the business of your company – not available for assessors)
- URL of your company,
- Your social profile (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google +, Instagram)
No todos los campos del perfil son públicos…
La funcionalidad “Quién ha visto mi perfil” permite ver quien ha visitado tu perfil en los XXX últimos días. Cuando alguien hace clic en “Quién ha visto mi perfil”
En la versión gratuita se puede ver el nombre de usuarios que han visto tu perfil en tu home y los 2 primeros nombres en la página de tu perfil. Para ver todos los usuarios que han visto tu perfil y su detalle se necesita una cuenta Premium.
For VSE
Certification for small organization is often difficult to obtain and maintain. That is why, in terms of effort and cost, the ISO/IEC 29110 certification allows you an agile and cost limited international recognition, tailored to your needs.
The parts of ISO/IEC 29110-3-x define the certification scheme, process assessment guidelines, and compliance requirements for process capability assessment and conformity assessments to facilitate this important achievement.
In general, it does not take more than 6 months for most VSEs around the world to be ready to become certified.
After connecting with an accredited certification body, a basic profile certification process follows 4 simple steps:
- Agreement for certification (application, program and certification/contract agreement),
- Certification assessment (following a certificate plan containing the process assessment plan, the data collection and validation, the results collection and an assessment report), which results in obtaining the certificate,
Note: It is usually done within your company or online, with an accredited leader assessor, of duration of a maximum of 1 day and at a low cost,
- Surveillance evaluations (every year),
- Recertification evaluation (every 3 years).
Visit our page dedicated to this topic of first importance and find your certification body in our network. upto25 also offers you the possibility to do all this process via the web to facilitate the communication and the related procedures between the different stakeholders.
Depending on your improvement plan upto25 allow you to navigate in a practical way and select the content of our guide to know what and how to do what you have to do.
That’s why processes, activities and tasks have been designed with graphic flows that allow you to see and have detailed information about each one. Clicking on:
- a process (e.g. Project Management – PM) you go directly to the corresponding page,
- an activity (e.g. Project Planning) you go directly to the corresponding section (PM.1 Project Planning) of the related page (Project Management – PM)
- a task (e.g. PM1.1 Review the job definition), a small window is opened with the detail of this task (description, techniques and recommendations).
- a role, the detail of the defined roles (description and competency) is opened in a small window.
- a work product, a document, the detail of this work product (source, description, templates and examples) is opened in a small window.
We all know that in order to achieve the quality of the product or the service we must constantly improve. But is it worth the effort to define and follow an improvement plan?
Our experience shows that always good things, and sometimes very good, come from this reflection to migrate from existing practices in an organization towards more mature processes, but in a progressive way, without losing the innovative and flexible nature of the VSE.
Successful organizations continually improve their processes and upto25 has a mission to help you doing things better and not only fighting fires or managing crises.
Visit our introduction to process improvement to see how to start a process improvement plan using the standard ISO/IEC 29110 and discover success stories of those who succeed in increasing their excellence thanks to upto25.
The basic software profile is the first profile defined by the ISO/IEC 29110 standard and is defined as a software engineering lifecycle process profile for small entities (VSEs) that develop one project at a time. It contains two processes: Project Management and Software Implementation closely interrelated.
If you develop multiple projects, in addition to this basic profile that is the first to be implemented in every organization, another profile, the Organizational one, has been defined to help managing multiple projects, with shared resources, with the same culture in each projects and fulfilling the objectives of the organization.
Using the guidelines of ISO/IEC 29110, a VSE can obtain the following benefits:
- The expected product or products are delivered to the Client, following an agreed set of project requirements.
- A disciplined management process is carried out that gives visibility to the project and takes corrective actions of problems and deviations of the project.
- Follows a systematic process of software implementation that satisfies the needs of the Customer and ensures the quality of the products.
[IEC/ISO 29110-5-1-2]
ISO, the world’s largest developer of international standards, has understood the problem of small organizations: they have their particular characteristics but with the same need as larger organizations to develop products of value and to be recognized, but they do not have an international standard adapted to their characteristics.
That is why the ISO/IEC 29110 standard has been developed to improve the quality of VSEs (Very Small Entities), providing key material that requires minimal adaptation effort for its application and a way of being recognized (assessment and certification) as producers of quality software.
ISO/IEC 29110 is a set of standards:
- For the VSE implementation of processes.
- For VSEs, certification bodies and evaluators, for the evaluation and certification of VSEs.
- Defined as a first step for certification of more complete models e.g. CMMI, ISO 15504/330xx, and ISO 9001.
- For Software, Systems and IT Services.
Before to be ready for certification or to know how to start, you may need an expert to help you on the improvement process. In our network you can easily find assessors who will give their service. Do not hesitate to contact us or search the social network for the best consulting service.
When it comes the time to start the certification process, upto25 helps you finding the certification body that best suits you and who will have the required accredited assessors. upto25 also offers you the possibility to do all this process via the web to facilitate the communication and the related procedures between the different stakeholders.
Because no one wants to be evaluated by each of their customer, and that we all know how important it is to be recognized, an ISO/IEC 29110 certification can offer you multiple advantages:
- Help the implementation of best practices and avoid repetition of errors.
- Ensures the correct management of your projects in order to reach product quality, on-time delivery and control of the budget,
- Improves the image of your company and facilitates the marketing,
- Increases competitiveness, customer confidence, greater sales and export potential
Visit our page dedicated to certification and find your assessor and certification body in our network of contacts.
The guide we offer you in upto25 is based on the ISO / IEC 29110 5-1-2 (Life Cycle Profiles for VSEs – Part 5-1-2: Management and engineering guide: Generic profile group: Basic Profile ). It is a detailed and complete guide for the first profile defined by ISO / IEC 29110, the Basic Profile and has the following characteristics:
- It meets the requirements of Part 4 -1 of the standard,
- It differs from the standard only when we think that improvements or more information are needed to facilitate your work,
- It has been designed in web format to facilitate its use,
- It incorporates a second level of guidance, developed by upto25 members and validated by the Governing Board, with a description, techniques and recommendations for all tasks defined by the standard.
- It provides templates and concrete examples of all work products resulting from the implementation of the processes defined in the standard.
The first step to improvement is to know where you are with respect to where you want to be. To do this you can do a self-assessment using our free tool. Thus, it will allow you to quickly and easily check both where to improve and how to define the first improvement objectives. Then, you can analyse the ISO/IEC 29110 standard more in detail to see how you can adapt it to your organization, and resolve problems and weaknesses identified.
Keep in mind that this path to excellence requires the participation of your entire organization to change the way you work and a time for training and adaptation for everyone. Do not forget that your customers will also be affected by your new way of working, but it will be for the better, demonstrating control of what you do.
Visit our introduction to process improvement to see how to start journey to excellence using ISO / IEC 29110 standard.
upto25, as an independent entity, has no relationship with ISO, but its founders (Softwcare SL) and some members of the board are members of some ISO working groups and contribute actively to the development of quality standards in the field of the software (ISO / IEC 29110, ISO / IEC 15504, etc.).
As VSE (Very Small Entities) we know that you are unique in what you do and that you do it well. But we also know that not all projects end up successful and that it is not always easy to satisfy your customers.
That’s why, using a standard, is a perfect tool for improving your processes. With the help of experts in the field of software and standardization, a standard such as ISO/IEC 29110 allows you to:
- To facilitate the development work giving a unique methodology with recognized techniques,
- Emphasize shared communication and understanding in all parts of an organization.
- Improve project management to achieve product quality, on-time delivery and control of the budget,
- Improve the image of the company and facilitate the marketing,
- Increase competitiveness, customer confidence and greater sales and export potential,
- Help in the definition of best practices and avoid repetition of errors giving consistency and improvement in the development processes
Visit our introduction to process improvement to see how to start journey to excellence using ISO / IEC 29110 standard.
Additional services
For assessors
Either for your accreditation or to discover the process for the ISO/IEC 29110 assessment visit our web based guides. Each guide has been designed with graphic flows that allow you to see and have clear understanding of each process. By clicking in a task, a role or a work product a popup window opens with more information.
ISO, the world’s largest developer of international standards, has understood the problem of small organizations: they have their particular characteristics but with the same need as larger organizations to develop products of value and to be recognized, but they do not have an international standard adapted to their characteristics.
That is why the ISO/IEC 29110 standard has been developed to improve the quality of VSEs (Very Small Entities), providing key material that requires minimal adaptation effort for its application and a way of being recognized (assessment and certification) as producers of quality software.
ISO/IEC 29110 is a set of standards:
- for the VSE implementation of processes.
- for VSEs, certification bodies and evaluators, for the evaluation and certification of VSEs.
- defined as a first step for certification of more complete models e.g. CMMI, ISO 15504/330xx, and ISO 9001.
- for Software, Systems and IT Services.
As assessor get access to dedicated guides on how to be accredited and how to assess based on ISO/IEC 29110 profiles. You may also be interested in the guides for the VSEs made from the best practices on how to implement and be compliant with the standard.
Be trained by an accredited training provider and pass the required test and examination to be accredited as an ISO/IEC 29110 assessor. To know more on the existing grades and the defined process visit our guide and to find an accredited tutor that suits your needs, visit the IntRSA site .
You can decide to be an ISO/IEC 29110 assessor for internal or external assessment for improvement purpose or as third party for the conformity certification emission. For this last case you have to be registered and certified by the INTRSA (International Registration Scheme for Assessors).
The registration process aims to demonstrate the professional and technical skills, knowledge and competencies of the assessor (after a test) while the certification process aims to demonstrate the required practical assessment experience (after examination).
There are three assessor grades you can be registered/certified for:
- Assessor: entry level certification grade to perform assessments and collect practical assessment experience.
- Lead Assessor: for performing third party assessments.
- Principal Assessor: to issue certificates of conformity or have their extensive experience recognized.
For certification bodies
Either for your accreditation or to discover the process for the ISO/IEC 29110 certification visit our web based guides. Each guide has been designed with graphic flows that allow you to see and have clear understanding of each process. By clicking in a task, a role or a work product a popup window opens with more information.
ISO, the world’s largest developer of international standards, has understood the problem of small organizations: they have their particular characteristics but with the same need as larger organizations to develop products of value and to be recognized, but they do not have an international standard adapted to their characteristics.
That is why the ISO/IEC 29110 standard has been developed to improve the quality of VSEs (Very Small Entities), providing key material that requires minimal adaptation effort for its application and a way of being recognized (assessment and certification) as producers of quality software.
ISO/IEC 29110 is a set of standards:
- for the VSE implementation of processes.
- for VSEs, certification bodies and evaluators, for the evaluation and certification of VSEs.
- defined as a first step for certification of more complete models e.g. CMMI, ISO 15504/330xx, and ISO 9001.
- for Software, Systems and IT Services.
As certification body get access to dedicated guides on how to be accredited and how to certify based on the ISO/IEC 29110 standard. You may also be interested in the guides for the assessor on how to perform an assessment and be compliant with the standard and how to be accredited to be able to participate in the certification process.
Check our guide to know the typical steps in the accreditation process and get in touch with your national accreditation body to start a new business giving confidence internationally through international agreements of the ISO/IEC 29110-3-3 schema.
To be able to emit certification based on the ISO/IEC 29110-3-3 scheme you have to be accredited by your national accreditation body. As an example upto25 presents the main steps of the process defined by the Spanish Accreditation Body (ENAC) in the following guide: guide for certification body.
By being an ISO/IEC 29110 certification body you demonstrate that you can behave ethically and have the authority and credibility for certification and you will contribute to improve your national industry to be more efficient and competitive opening doors of the immense majority of your enterprises i.e. VSEs to new markets.
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