


Entrance and Exit Criteria
Background
This guidance provides the maximum set of life cycle review entrance and exit criteria for software projects and should be tailored for the project class.This guidance is a summarized collection of material from the following core documents: NPR 7123.1, Appendix G 041; version D of NPR 7120.5 (since superseded by version F) 082; and Center Procedures.
This guidance includes three types of information for each review:
- Entrance criteria - Activities and products that are to be completed before the review can begin.
- Items Reviewed - Items to be reviewed during review and used to confirm exit criteria; this information is typically available a couple of weeks prior to the review.
- Exit / Success Criteria – Decisions and actions to be completed before the review is considered complete.
This guidance is focused on the responsibilities of the software engineering community throughout the project life cycle reviews. Therefore, the guidance includes reviews and products which are the primary responsibility of the software engineering community as well as software engineering community contributions to system activities and products, such as the Project Plan.
Note that different mission types (e.g., robotic vs. human) can have different life cycles and, therefore, different sets of life cycle reviews that apply.
This material considers a software project to be a system of systems as well as a single subsystem within the larger project. "System of systems" refers to a software project that includes software subsystems that perform functions allocated to them. Just as a project allocates requirements to hardware, software, external components, etc., software projects allocate software requirements to software subsystems.
This material has been reviewed by the Software Working Group and the Office of the Chief Engineer.
Source of Content
Including the resources in the list below, information was pulled and consolidated based on repetition between Center Process Asset Libraries (PALs) and documents (Ames Research Center (ARC), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Stennis Space Center (SSC)).
See also 7.08 - Maturity of Life Cycle Products at Milestone Reviews.
1.1 References
1.2 Additional Guidance
Additional guidance related to this requirement may be found in the following materials in this Handbook:
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1.3 Center Process Asset Libraries
SPAN - Software Processes Across NASA
SPAN contains links to Center managed Process Asset Libraries. Consult these Process Asset Libraries (PALs) for Center-specific guidance including processes, forms, checklists, training, and templates related to Software Development. See SPAN in the Software Engineering Community of NEN. Available to NASA only. https://nen.nasa.gov/web/software/wiki 197
See the following link(s) in SPAN for process assets from contributing Centers (NASA Only).
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Mission Concept Review (MCR)
The MCR affirms the mission need and examines the proposed mission's objectives and the concept for meeting those objectives. Key technologies are identified and assessed. It is an internal review that usually occurs in the cognizant system development organization. ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) budget and schedules are presented. (NPR 7120.5 082)
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Additional Supporting Material
System Requirements Review (SRR)
The SRR examines the functional and performance requirements defined for the system and the preliminary Program or Project Plan and ensures that the requirements and the selected concept will satisfy the mission. (NPR 7120.5 082)
- If not performing a Software Requirements Review (SwRR), include SwRR criteria as part of SRR.
- For software-only projects, the SwRR serves as the SRR.