Global Professional Standards for Project Cost Management

This paper explores the need for global professional standards in the project cost management field. A range of global standards and guides have been developed for the project management profession as a whole but there have not been any developed specifically for project cost management (other than as a subset of project management standards). It will be argued that project cost management (be it Quantity Surveying, Cost Engineering, Project Controls or cost management carried out by Project Managers) is a specialist technical field that requires its own specific standards. The paper will examine the various national and regional professional standards that have been developed for the Quantity Surveying, Cost Engineering and Project Controls professions by various countries and professional associations around the world. It then examines the issues surrounding the lack of global standards for these professions and explores the benefits of developing over-arching strategies to produce global standards/programs. The paper then describes current initiatives to develop these specific global standards. This will include the International Construction Measurement Standard (ICMS) that is in the early stages of development. The research methodology underpinning this study comprises a review of professional standards around the world and interviews with practitioners and members of professional cost management associations within the International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC). The paper concludes with a range of recommendations and strategies to help address these issues.