ISO 21500

ISO 21500:2012, Guidance on Project Management, is an international standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO starting in 2007 and released in 2012. It was intended to provide generic guidance, explain core principles and what constitutes good practice in project management. The ISO technical committee dealing with project management, ISO/PC 236 was held by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) which had approved four standards that used PMI materials. one of which was ANSI/PMI 99-001-2008, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge - 4th Edition (PMI BoK® Guide - 4th Edition) (revision and re-designation of ANSI/PMI 99-001-2004): 11/20/2008.

ISO plans for this standard (21500) to be the first in a family of project management standards. ISO also designed this standard to align with other, related standards such as ISO 10005:2005,Quality management systems -- Guidelines for quality plans, ISO 10006:2003, Quality management systems − Guidelines for quality management in projects, ISO 10007:2003, Quality management systems − Guidelines for configuration management, ISO 31000:2009, Risk management – Principles and guidelines.

The process approach to project management developed in the 1980s, largely in Europe. The main focus of this approach is the use of structured processes throughout project execution in order to achieve its objectives. Project management then is a structured process about converting a vision into reality and the major emphasis was on developing and defining processes in order to meet project objectives. Research has demonstrated that organizational effectiveness is a direct function of the decision-making criteria and goal-centered activities embedded in processes and implicitly, a process based approach to project management.
Project life cycles come out of this process approach to project management. In fact, several core concepts in the Project Management Body of Knowledge are based upon the process based to project management, particularly, project management processes, integration management, and the management of quality and risk.

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