BS ISO 21502:2020

What is ISO 21502 about?  

ISO 21502 gives guidelines for project management. ISO 21502 applies to any organization, including public, private, and charitable, as well as to any type of project, regardless of purpose, delivery approaches, life cycle model used, complexity, size, cost, or duration. 

ISO 21502 provides high-level descriptions of practices that are considered to work well and produce good results within the context of project management. Topics relating to general management are addressed only within the context of project management. 

Note1: Delivery approach can be any method or process suited to the type of outputs, such as predictive, incremental, iterative, adaptive or hybrid, including agile approaches. 

Note2: ISO 21502 does not guide the management of programmes or portfolios. 

Who is ISO 21502 for? 

ISO 21502 on project and portfolio management is useful for: 

• Asset management organizations 
• Direction and assurance management team 
• Project managers and project team members 

Why should you use ISO 21502?  

The project management approach should be tailored and applied considering the organization’s needs, level of prevailing risk, the competence of those individuals involved and other project-specific considerations. Tailoring and applying the practices should be undertaken in accordance with the relevant organizational policies. Conflicts between organizational policies and project management practices should be resolved in consultation with the project sponsor. 

ISO 21502 guides concepts and practices for project management that are important for and have an impact on a project’s successful delivery. 

These project management concepts of ISO 21502 help you to: 

• Achieve the project’s objectives 
• Define and manage the scope of the project within the constraints, while considering the risks and resource needs 
• Obtain support from each participating and performing organization, including commitment from resource owners, funders, suppliers, customers, users and other stakeholders 

What’s changed since the last update?  

BS ISO 21502:2020 supersedes BS ISO 21500:2012. BS ISO 21502:2020 includes some technical changes with respect to BS ISO 21500:2012. These include: 

• The concept of project management has been expanded to include project-related oversight and direction activities of the sponsoring organization 
• Information about how projects can deliver outcomes and enable the realization of benefits has been added 
• Consideration of the organizational context of projects has been added 
• Descriptions of additional project roles and responsibilities have been added 
• Pre-and post-project activities have been added