ISO 21500 Guidance on project management - A Pocket Guide (eBook)

2   ISO 21500 background and overview

This chapter describes the ISO organization, the development process of its standards and the background, benefits, structure and future of the ISO 21500 document.

2.1   ISO organization

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world’s largest developer of voluntary international standards. It was founded in 1947 and since then has published over 19,000 international standards, which give state of the art specifications for products, services and good practice, helping to make industry more efficient and effective. ISO is a network of national standards bodies in 164 countries, which make up the ISO membership and represent ISO in their country.

ISO mission:

•   ‘The mission of ISO is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity.’

ISO objectives:

•   ‘Conformity assessment’: checking that products, materials, services, systems, processes or people measure up to the specifications of a relevant standard or specification. Today, many products require testing for conformity with specifications or compliance with safety, or other regulations before they can be put on many markets. ISO guides and standards for conformity assessment represent an international consensus on best practice. Their use contributes to the consistency of conformity assessment worldwide and so facilitates trade.

•   ‘Certification’: ISO does not carry out accreditation or certification to any of its standards; there exist many testing laboratories and certification bodies which offer independent conformity assessment services.

2.2   ISO standards development process

Via the national standards bodies, subject matter experts from all over the world participate in the standards development through a global, open and transparent process aimed at achieving consensus. The forming of a shared view on the contents of a standard is a long process, but this means in the end that the ISO standards are widely supported.

The development process is organized via:

•   Project or technical committees, which formulate the scope of the standards and organize meetings with international experts to discuss and write the contents of the standards and process the received comments;

•   National mirror committees, which appoint subject matter experts to take part in the development and comment on the draft standards.

On average, developing an international standard takes approximately four years.

2.3   ISO standard versus guideline

ISO develops international standards. A standard is a voluntary agreement between stakeholders on a product, service, result or process. The agreements contain terms and definitions, functional and performance related requirements, processes, measuring methods and good practices.

Two kinds of standards exist:

•   Of descriptive (informative) nature;

•   Of prescriptive (normative) nature.

If one talks about a standard one normally means the prescriptive standard. A descriptive standard is often called a guideline. A guideline presents the course of action with regard to the demands of goods, services and people. A guideline does not specifically describe what to do, that is the goal of a prescriptive standard. Prescriptive standards are often the next logical step, after descriptive standards have been implemented in organizations and have globally been accepted as a good practice.

2.4   Background of ISO 21500

This section discusses the economic driver for developing ISO 21500, along with the process and the sources which have been used for its creation.

The economic driver to develop ISO 21500

One-fifth of the world’s GDP, or more than $12 trillion, will be spent on projects each year in the next decade1. This is an enormous investment, which calls for prudent spending and proper management control.

Since the industrial revolution, standardization has been an important prerequisite for growth. Recent research indicates that today’s businesses face economic pressure from clients and other stakeholders to meet their needs faster and more cheaply than ever6.

In today’s world, investments and organizational changes are realized via projects and programs of related projects. For many of these projects a variety of disciplines and a mix of internal and external workers are involved. All these people need to cooperate in a proper way, everyone has to carry out his/her tasks effectively and, at the same time, all this work must be aligned and executed in a process-driven way. A great number of project management methods and practices exist. Who can apply these properly? Which method should be chosen in a multidisciplinary project? How does one communicate with the stakeholders? These questions do not have easy answers.

In the past there have been a number of initiatives aimed at developing global project management standards, like Global Project Management Forum (from 1994), PMBOK Guide (ANSI standard, First Edition in 1996), Operational Level Coordination Initiative (OLCI, from 1999), Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS, from 2002) and ISO 10006 – Quality management systems – Guidelines for quality management in projects, 2003). They all failed to produce one body of project management knowledge that was accepted globally. ISO 21500 – Guidance for project management is the step towards the true world standard for project management.

The development process of ISO 21500

In 2006 the United Kingdom submitted a proposal to develop a new international standard for project management, which later became known as ISO 21500. With the forthcoming 2012 Olympic Games in London they realized that their current standard developed by the BSI (British Standards Institution) needed a revision. The United States supported this proposal and it went for ballot to the 164 countries that have an ISO representation. A majority of ISO members voted positively and the ISO/PC (Project Committee) 236 was established at a meeting in October 2007 in London with the charter to develop the standard.

Hundreds of project management experts and their mirror committees from more than 30 countries have co-operated during the five years of its completion. The participants have discussed the contents, wrote the body text and processed more than 1,000 comments that came up per draft version. An international project team that worked very well together came into being, because the same 80 – 100 delegates participated in the various international meetings.

The large project management associations were involved in various ways. PMI (Project Management Institute) was the secretary of ISO/PC 236. IPMA (International Project Management Association) formally took part in the development in a liaison role. There was no noticeable representation of UK’s Cabinet Office (owner of PRINCE2). Of course, a number of experts in the working group were also members of these associations or holders of their professional certifications and have represented the associations’ views via their involvements.

The sources for ISO 21500 development

ISO 21500 has a broad target audience that uses various sources for project management. Therefore, the support for the guideline – first by its developers and later by its users – had to be the core of project management that is relevant for everybody. All country mirror committees had the opportunity to bring in relevant sources of project management as input for the guideline at the start of its development in 2007. They proposed the following national standards:

1   A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)-Third Edition, Chapter 3 and Glossary, PMI Inc., 2004 – the American ANSI standard;

2   DIN 69901 Project Management: Project Management Systems, DIN, 2007 – the German DIN standard;

3   BS 6079 and BS ISO 15188:2001 – Project management, BSI, 2001   – the English BSI standard.

In the course of the ISO 21500 development other market standards and existing ISO standards have been used as reference materials:

1   ICB version 3.0 (IPMA Competence Baseline) – by International Project Management Association;

2   PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) – by Cabinet Office, previously OGC;

3   ISO 9001 – Quality management systems;

4   ISO 10006 – Quality management systems – Guidelines for quality management in projects;

5   ISO 31000 – Risk management – Principles and guidelines.

The benefits of ISO 21500

The ISO 21500 guideline is not a new project management standard, but a reference for other project management standards, methods and best practices, such as PMBOK, PRINCE2, Agile and ICB. It does not compare one against the other, but brings the...