How standards help us in our everyday job
A bit of history
We have been bombarded during recent years about
standards, coming from very different organizations. The history of standards goes back to the
Second World War, from the moment at which the Allies had the urgent need to
standardize mechanisms of collaboration. The second great moment came with the
development of the global network (internet) -- it was more than fundamental to
achieve a mechanism that ensured the network was flowing adequately and, with
this intention, it was necessary that all the computers were linked by the same
language all the time. The third
important impulse came from the hand of two important milestones: on one hand, the strong impulse dedicated by
the European Union to coordinate mechanisms that were facilitating the
inter-ministerial communication among all its member states and partners and,
on the other hand, the trend towards a global world in recession. As a consequence of the latter impulse it
becomes necessary to strengthen an international mechanism that facilitates the
task of inter-state coordination. It is
at the time when the International Standards Organization (or ISO from the Greek
“equal”) takes a relevant role in the
area of the elaboration of standards and guidelines to facilitate a global
communication. The industrialized
countries and the emerging ones saw there an opportunity to compile lessons
learned and good practices in a multitude of common areas.
Security Standards’ approach
The field of safety and security has quickly evolved into risk
management as a wider field of development, by bringing together within risk
management the expertise of different areas as dissimilar as security and
finances. In addition, it is a must in
this recession environment to better coordinate efficient response in all
business areas under a unique Governance mechanism. The definitive impulse was given by the
business continuity preparedness process that favoured the communication
between areas rarely in contact with each other. Crisis Management has now,
more than ever, a management/coordination role above all the different areas of
response.
ISO, ASIS International, BSI,
CPM, BCI and many others began a process of intercommunication that led to the
birth of the ISO 31000 Risk Management Standard based on the Australian model. Since then, an endless number of very well
coordinated and interlinked products have appeared, with the intention of
obtaining a perfect communication flow between economy of means, efficiency and
standardization. In this process was
born the idea of connecting governance with Corporate Risk Management to better
face an all hazards approach rather than a single scenario-based approach. This concept today is widely known as
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), and is intimately tied to the development of
Organizational Resilience. The standards
do not have the intention of imposing a system, but rather of offering
sustainable alternatives and the probed and condensed expertise of recognized
professional subject matter experts in every area. Every organization can use at its convenience
any standard and adapt it to their internal needs with little effort. More than reinventing the wheel again, it is a
way to share and better communicate.
Where are these standards available?
Not every publication with the word “standard” on the cover is really
worth reading. One needs to differentiate between personal experience
compilations and truly international standards.
Though many of the good standards have a cost (no more than the one of
every regular research publication), the investment is worth it because you can
find an excellent compilation of good, consolidated practices and lessons learned
of great utility that can maximize your time while researching and help your
organization in the tedious process of improving the efficiency of our internal
boards and governance mechanisms. There
are other standards free of charge. Doing
a rapid search online one can find copies of both of them (see below).
Interesting references
Here are some interesting references to be explored; some of them
contain papers that can be downloaded free of charge:
http://img.en25.com/Web/CitrixOnline/SteveJobs_Innovator.pdf
