donderdag 13 september 2012

ISO 21500 Project Management certification


I found this interesting discussion in the LinkedIn-group ISO 2150.
For those who can't access this group, this is the text.

Ana-Maria Paraschiv, PMP • Dear group members,
It was recently clarified to me that ISO 21500 was developed as guidance only, and is not intended to be used for certification. There is nothing in 21500 that you can certify against.
This is unlike any other ISO I heard of and I am quite curious on the reasons for this? Why was the ISO 21500 created only for guidance and not also for certification/audit?
Looking forward for more details on this, if anyone has them :)
Thanks,
Ana

Mario Coquillat de Travesedo, PMP • Ana, final edition of ISO 21500 has deleted the sentence "This International Standard is not intended for certification or regulatory purposes" so now is open to market requirements.
This is ISO´s spirit, see the evolution of the guide and not predefine it.
However, current ISO 21500 has not the structure to be certified (requirements are not included) so probably next version (within 5 years) if market requires it will be oriented to certification.

Ana-Maria Paraschiv, PMP • Mario, Many, many thanks for the information. What I understand from you is that if at an organization level, or country level, the decision will be to use ISO 21500 as a standard of practice in project management, then that is ok, but a formal certification, as in being kept with and audit process is not yet possible, but might be in 5 years time. Did I get the message right?
Many thanks,
Ana

Mario Coquillat de Travesedo, PMP • That´s correct. If you want to work in implementation I invite you to visit our blog and the PMI´s volunteers project we´re working to help companies in this challenge.
http://iso21500analysis.blogspot.com.es/
About certification, you have to wait at least 5 years if you want to be certified by ISO or your national body (in Spain is Aenor) but if you want you can be recognized as a company which fulfill with ISO 21500 using a third party company (e.g. a consultant firm)

Lars Wendestam • There are quite many ISO standards not used for certification but still valuable to use. Som you are probalby using without knowing you do, such as the ISO standard for country codes and currency codes. Regarding ISO 21500, my view is to use it as a backbone standards to the quality standard ISO 9001. If you have a larger part of your organisations work performed in projects, it is relevant to have that described in your quality system. ISO 21500 helps you to get the right structure in your business managmeent system (BMS).

4 opmerkingen:

  1. I agree! This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing this with us.
    BarileISO9001Consulting.com

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  2. As far as I know, the ISO 21500 is a section for guidance on project management. It is applicable in any type of organization for them to have a guide on delivering projects efficiently and facilitating it to enhance the flexibility of employees. The people in this discussion have their own good point of views about this topic.

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  3. Aenor has just certified Sach (a spanish company) with ISO 21500. AENOR certifies projects and portfolios with ISO 21500.

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  4. Does anyone have information on third party certification for ISO 21500 in India please?

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