Project management standards

Abstract

Often, even in the definition of the project, there are conditions for uniqueness, uniqueness of objectives, performance conditions and results. As far as this is true, then what is it possible to standardize in project management? And if that is possible, is it necessary? Will this not only hamper, impede the initiative, impose wrong decisions? If the managers of large companies prioritize the psychological aspects of governance and the art of building interpersonal relationships in the project, their colleagues from small companies prefer a procedural approach. This is indeed the case and means that working within certain limits and norms for these managers is not only common, but also very convenient. What then to say about managing a company for which the existence and implementation of such standards means a guaranteed level of project quality? Finally, the fact that the practice of creating their own procedures and project management guides is widespread in large companies such as Oracle, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP AG, Siemens and others. All these considerations are of interest, which made me explore this topic in more detail.Project management standards at company level, in terms of methodology, usually have a basis that is defined by documents of rather general nature (sometimes referred to as framework ones). These documents also include the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) of the American Institute for Project Management (PMI) and ISO 10006: 2003. The meaning and content of the transition from framework standards (such as PMBOK and, to an even greater extent, ISO 10006) to the standard for a company, lies in their specialization and detail. Specialization means the inclusion in the company's standard of those provisions that are relevant to the project activities specifically for this company. They must be clearly defined. It is necessary to define clearly the concepts, measurable indicators, etc. In this respect, the company's standard should inevitably contain a description and classification of the completed projects. They can be linked to different professional fields of activity (legal, financial, information technology, construction, marketing, etc.) and have a different complexity in terms of the problems they solve, on a different scale, in terms of the resources used and the supposed results. The organizational structure and human resources of the project are also subject to specialization. The company's standard could not only fix the roles defined in the project (project manager, administrator, quality manager, etc.), but also can define the structure and principles of project management bodies. The proper description of these procedures constitutes the bulk of the volume of the standard. To be more precise, by company's standard, we mean a set of documents explaining or prescribing how, in what order, within what timeframes, with which templates, one or other activities in the process of projects management should be performed. The amount of these documents depends on the degree of detail of the standard and can be large enough. Subject of description in the standard could be, typical situations of the company's projects, as well as recommendations for managers to respond to such situations. This is a kind of table of solutions, similar to a list of possible problems and recommendations for their removal. Of course, the decision will be taken by the manager, but in front of him will be the summary experience of his colleagues.