The same can be said of standards within the project management profession. By establishing proven and accepted standards today, project management professionals can be better prepared for the challenges of the future. It represents a noteworthy accomplishment for the profession and becomes a springboard for achievement into the future. Standards development is an integral and necessary part of the development of most professions if they are to be recognized as legitimate and distinct.
Standards define a profession and help it grow.
Additionally, standards allow a profession to regulate itself and the activities of its members, and help express the profession's social responsibility, a hallmark of many professions. We got together as a committee and determined what our timelines were and agreed on our requirements, costs, benefits, and so on. ANSI accepted the Institute in October 1998. The next year was spent on the application procedure for approval of the standard itself. Although we had a loose set of operating principles prior to this, we didn't have a totally documented method for how standards were done.