The Draft ISO 11000 (Part 1): The Overall Verdict
14th January 2016 – Posted by Stephen Bruce at 4:08pm
Earlier this month, the draft version of the ISO 11000 “Collaborative business relationship management” standard was released on the BSI site for comments ahead of anticipated publication later this year.
Drawing extensively on the existing BS 11000 standard, but adopting the new ISO management system structure (Annex SL) now being used for new (and revisions of) management system standards, the progression to ISO is a significant milestone in the collaborative working domain.
The 8 stage operational framework – originally set out in BS 11000, and now in clause 8 of ISO 11000 – remains a very useful (and potentially general) change management template. It highlights the ‘natural’ transition from an investment phase (led by development-centric “team builders” in Stages 1-5), to the investment utilisation phase (led by the results-oriented “goal achievers” in Stages 5-8)”.
Equally, by factoring out Leadership, Planning, Support, Performance Evaluation and Improvement as key high-level areas, the Annex SL structure provides a surrounding context which minimises and manages the risks of culturally-driven tensions between the results-oriented “goal achievers”, and the development-centric “team builders”.
But a standard which addresses every issue and pleases everyone is at best a Herculean task, so what’s changed from BS 11000? Which known issues have been addressed and which remain? What might people new to the standard find challenging?
Overall, it seems to us at NIP that ISO 11000 builds on and develops BS 11000, but that it has some significant (although not insurmountable) issues arising from the transfer of the core of the BS 11000 structure into the new Annex SL structure.
Over the next two articles in this series, we’ll be exploring: