PMFORUM Breaking News
Breaking News in the Project Management World
Monday, December 28, 2009
asapm Releases Draft Standard for Organizational Assessment in USA
The American Society for the Advancement of Project Management (asapm) has released an Exposure Draft of its Standard for Assessing Organizational Performance in Project Management. Once approved, the standard will be available for use by both public and private sector organizations to evaluate their project management performance. The draft may be downloaded from asapm's website, and comments are due by February 10, 2010.
Tim Jacques (pictured at left), asapm Director of Standards, said that the Standard will have two major uses. asapm will use it to certify a competent organization as an asapm Performance Rated Organization (aPROSM), while organizations will use it to identify opportunities to get better results from their projects. The aPRO toolkit consists of the standard, an assessor training program, and an assessor guide to help ensure consistent, valid, and reliable assessments. Jacques also noted that data from all assessments will be made available to academic researchers for free.
When asked about the need for a new organizational project management assessment standard, Bill Duncan, aPRO architect, said that other available standards are "mostly proprietary, prescriptive, or just too problematic to implement." He went on to note that "several consultancies with their own proprietary models — including my own — have decided to use aPRO instead." He added that the standard was designed so that it could be used to assess a department, an agency, a business unit, a geographic location, or an entire corporate entity.
Duncan also noted that the design of the aPRO standard differs from other approaches in that it evaluates actual performance rather than looking at the inputs and processes that might produce good results. He contends that this "results orientation" produces a more effective assessment and requires less effort from those involved.
Stacy Goff, asapm President (pictured at right), added that, "We expect aPRO assessments to be in high demand, especially among Federal Government agencies trying to comply with the Federal Acquisition Certification For Program and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM)." Goff also stated that he expects high demand from service providers in Information Technology, software development, biotech, and telecommunications who can use aPRO certification as evidence of their ability to deliver timely and cost effective results for their customers.
The Exposure Draft may be downloaded from its official website at apro.asapm.org. Comments should be sent to aPRO-Comments@asapm.org no later than February 10th, 2010. The final Standard will be available on the website by April 5, 2010.
Consultancies that are interested in offering aPRO assessments, and organizations that are interested in getting assessed, should contact the aPRO team at: aPRO-Interest@asapm.org.
asapm, the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management, is a not-for-profit professional society dedicated to advancing the practice of project and program management in the United States. asapm is the USA Member Association of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). Working through its members, with IPMA, and with other professional associations around the world, asapm provides leadership for improving project and program management competence and performance throughout the USA and beyond. More information at http://www.asapm.org/.
aPRO is a servicemark and asapm is a registered trademark of the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management
When asked about the need for a new organizational project management assessment standard, Bill Duncan, aPRO architect, said that other available standards are "mostly proprietary, prescriptive, or just too problematic to implement." He went on to note that "several consultancies with their own proprietary models — including my own — have decided to use aPRO instead." He added that the standard was designed so that it could be used to assess a department, an agency, a business unit, a geographic location, or an entire corporate entity.
Duncan also noted that the design of the aPRO standard differs from other approaches in that it evaluates actual performance rather than looking at the inputs and processes that might produce good results. He contends that this "results orientation" produces a more effective assessment and requires less effort from those involved.
The Exposure Draft may be downloaded from its official website at apro.asapm.org. Comments should be sent to aPRO-Comments@asapm.org no later than February 10th, 2010. The final Standard will be available on the website by April 5, 2010.
Consultancies that are interested in offering aPRO assessments, and organizations that are interested in getting assessed, should contact the aPRO team at: aPRO-Interest@asapm.org.
aPRO is a servicemark and asapm is a registered trademark of the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management