The 11th Alan Webb Memorial Lecture - Standards, how standard are they?

Martin Gillespie introduced the event by explaining that this lecture series had been instituted in memory of Alan Webb, who had an untimely passing in 2005. He had been an active member in APM serving on the South East Branch Committee and had authored books on Risk and Earned Value. The lectures are intended to bring international speakers to the branch to make their papers available to a local audience.

Our Speaker was Miles Shepherd, an Honorary Fellow and previous national Chairman of APM. His Lecture was entitled ‘ International Standards in Project Management – Today and Tomorrow’.

Miles has first-hand knowledge of this topic as Chairman of the British Standards Institute (BSI) Project Group. Standards are important to facilitate the reduction of technical barriers to trade. Miles took us on a journey through the membership of the International Standards Organisation (ISO). In Europe, the key players are France, Germany and the UK. There is a robust governance process but that can cause issues in the timeliness of developing new standards.

He communicated to the audience that the standards are global and are not tied to the EU; so there should be no issues in this area in relation to Brexit. In terms of evolution of the Standards organisations, Miles felt that Codes of Conduct and addressing potential conflicts of interest were key areas of focus.

A lively discussion followed and Miles demonstrated his broad and deep knowledge of the subject.

Miles was thanked for his informative lecture by Tony Noakes, South East Branch Chairman.

A copy of the presentation slides will be available on slideshare shortly.

Martin Gillespie.