ISO 21500 - A revolution for the PM world??

A few weeks ago I attended a seminar in Madrid about the changes in PMBOK version 5 compared to the previous version 4, and during the seminar, it was mentioned the key role that the ISO 21500 is expected to have in the near future in the project management world. In order to get a deeper knowledge of what is the ISO 21500 about and which one are the changes that it could bring to the project management world, I have attended some other specifics seminars about this topic and here I collect some notes and my conclusion.

First of all, what is ISO 21500?

ISO 21500:2012 provides guidance for project management and can be used by any type of organization, including public, private or community organizations, and for any type of project, irrespective of complexity, size or duration.

Its main goal is to provide project management best practices in order to increase the efficiency and maximize the return of investments made by the companies, which means that the focus of this Standard are the companies, and not the project managers, a significant different to the PMBOK for example.

It is quite remarkable that although there are already some Standards for Risk Management (ISO 31000) and for Quality Management (ISO 10006), this is the first Standard covering all the Project Management areas.

As of now, this Standard cannot be used for certification purposes. In the near future (around June 2013) it will be available for the certification of individual projects and the certification of portfolios and programs, but it will not available for the certification of companies.
 
New opportunities that could arise due to the ISO 21500

These are some of the possible new opportunities that may come due to the introduction of the ISO 21500.

• Higher recognition of the project management value for the organizations, as a way to maximize the return of investments made by the companies. This could bring as well a higher recognition of the value of the Project Managers as key elements for the success of the projects.

• The companies could start a transformation into “project oriented" companies once acknowledged the benefits of the project management excellence. As well, this could mean more and better rewarded job opportunities for the project managers.

• It could be possible that in order to be able to bid for a contract, the companies will have to be compliant with the ISO 21500 which it means that there will be a lot of new opportunities in the market for implementing ISO 21500 in the companies. 

• This ISO would help to have an universal "language" that would be used in the relationships between customers and providers. This would allow to the companies to have less entry barriers into other markets in the world.

• As the projects will be able to be certificated by this Standard, new job opportunities as ISO 21500 certifiers will be available.

As main conclusion, this new Standard could mean a revolution in the project management world and in the companies, establishing a change in the ways of working towards achieving the company goals, and a change in the relationships between the companies, meaning for the project managers a higher recognition and rewards, and the creation of thousands of new job opportunities.

Hopefully the ISO will be widely implemented and accepted and all these things will happen! Let´s see!!