GENEVA, SWITZERLAND-With a portfolio of more than 18,600 International standards, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently added and expanded five work areas for standards’ development. These are:

Project, program and portfolio management ;

Outsourcing;

Human resources management;

Additive manufacturing; and

Risk management.

ISO had originally established a project committee to develop a single standard on project management (ISO/PC 236). However, recognizing that the discipline of project management is much broader than what a single standard can encompass, it was decided that a new technical committee would be created to develop additional standards in this area.

The new ISO/TC 258, Project, Programme and Portfolio Management, will address aspects that are not covered in the standard currently in development by ISO/PC 236 (ISO 21500), but which are considered essential and urgently needed in many countries.

The first meeting will take place on June 27-29 in Washington, DC. Currently, 34 countries are involved. The Secretariat and Chair of the committee are held by ANSI (ISO member for the USA) and BSI (ISO member for the United Kingdom) respectively.