ISO/IEC 29110-4-1:2011 is applicable to Very Small Entities (VSEs). A Very Small Entity (VSE) is defined as an enterprise, organization, department or project having up to 25 people. A set of standards and guides have been developed according to a set of VSEs' characteristics and needs. The guides are based on subsets of appropriate standards elements, referred to as VSE profiles. The purpose of a VSE profile is to define a subset of International Standards relevant to the VSE context.

ISO/IEC 29110 is targeted by audience. ISO/IEC 29110-4 is targeted for standards producers, tool vendors and methodology vendors. It is not intended for VSEs. ISO/IEC 29110-4-m provides the specification for all the profiles in a profile group that are based on subsets of appropriate standards elements. If a new profile is needed, a Part 4-m can be developed without impacting existing documents.

ISO/IEC 29110-4-1:2011 provides a profile specification for the Basic VSE profile within the Generic profile group. The Generic profile group is applicable to VSEs that do not develop critical software. The Generic profile group does not imply any specific application domain.

The Basic VSE profile selects ISO/IEC 12207 project management and software implementation process elements and ISO/IEC 15289 products from the single project perspective. Its purpose is to provide the normative and informative links to the subset of ISO/IEC 12207 and ISO/IEC 15289.