Standards and Excellence in Project Management – In Who Do We Trust?

The importance of project management as a special organizational form for temporary endeavors and in particular for international collaborations increases steadily. Can the use of standards guarantee the excellent performance of a project or is the result just a good and acceptable project quality? These questions will be answered with regard to the new ISO 21.500 guideline for project management, to the art of national and international Project management standards and to the model for the project excellence. It will be shown how different standards help to build trust for collaboration in projects. In this paper the new global Standard, the national and international standards and a Project Excellence Modell der IPMA will be described. There will be some suggestions how these standards can be used in a reasonable mix. Last but not least the importance of well trained, competent individuals involved in project work will be emphasized.