I was privileged to attend the Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS) Thought Leadership Session in Manchester as a  Green Project Management (GPM) Global member representative.   Reinhard Wagner commented after the recent GAPPS Thought Leadership Forum “a strategic repositioning of GAPPS, being the Global Standards Experts in the field of projects, programmes and project portfolios.”  This was my fifth session over the past two years (including Edinburgh, Dubai, Tokyo, and Johannesburg), where my focus was working on the new Project Sponsor Standard (very exciting).

A key opportunity for GAPPS that was raised during the strategy workshop was how to raise awareness in our community about the great intellectual property that GAPPS makes available free of charge, and contributing to the exceptional working sessions that develop these.  This blog post will provide some context.

GAPPS evolved out of a series of workshops in the mid 90’s focused on reviewing existing standards and working towards a Global Performance Based Standards initiative around project management.  GAPPS has been operating since February 2003, where the first official working session was in Lille France.  GAPPS is a volunteer-driven, non-profit alliance that provides a reliable source for comparison of project based standards and qualifications.  Members of the GAPPS are globally distributed and include standards and qualifications bodies, professional associations, government agencies, industry, consulting and training organizations and academic institutions.

The GAPPS helps you make sense of the many competing project based standards and qualifications available worldwide.  To this end, GAPPS was accepted as a Category A Liaison with  ISO TC 258 Project, Programme and Portfolio Management along with PMI and IPMA. Everything produced by the GAPPS is made freely available to the public via the alliance website: www.globalpmstandards.org.  The toolsets provided include:

• Comparisons of all major project based standards
• Comparisons of assessment processes for project based qualifications
• Guidance for project sponsors
• Tools to assess relative complexity of projects and programs

For example, using the GAPPS mapping any organization can compare their default project based standard to an international and independent assessment model to identify areas that may require further investigation or consideration.  Even if the organization has their internal standard, they can compare it against the model.  There is no right or wrong as different cultures, industries and organizations may have different focus areas.  GAPPS provides awareness of other competency areas that may provide value to your organization.

For GPM Global, a new IPMA collaborative partner, our focus is on sustainable organizational change delivery, and at its core is a focus on the continuous improvement of our profession. GPM Global wanted to leverage the GAPPS expertise in performance-based competency assessments and help to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable change delivery. For that reason, GPM Global and GAPPS are excited to announce our signing of a MoU to collaborate, share best practices and facilitate opportunities to raise awareness. For GPM Global, these MoUs are an exceptional opportunity to partner with leaders in our field dedicated to the continuous improvement of the P3M discipline/profession and to contribute our expertise in organizational sustainability.