IPMA Perspective Competence Element — Compliance, Standards and Regulations
In my last article on IPMA, I wrote about the second competence element in the Perspective Area, Governance, Structures and Processes. In this article, I am writing on the third competence element: Compliance, Standards and Regulations.
This competence element aims to enable the individual to influence and manage the alignment of the relevant standards and regulations within the permanent organisations.
When I am part of the project team that delivers a communication system to the MINDEF, we need to comply with MIL-STD-810. MIL-STD-810 addresses a broad range of environmental conditions that a piece of equipment needs to withstand and continue functioning properly. Based on the standards, I need to design a scope to test to ensure that we cover those areas agreed with the customer and work with the testing laboratory to set up all the tests.
With this standard as a benchmark, we can carry out our test in a manner understood and accepted by the customer. Customer visited our laboratories for some of the tests to ensure that our set up is in compliance and those critical tests result truly reflect the testing outcome. For me, that’s my first time seeing such testing, especially those destructive testing, which is out to destroy the equipment. The purpose is to determine if those equipment are designed not to cause injuries to operators in an unforeseen event.
While Project Management has our standard terminology and way of doing things, it is essential to comply with the SOP of each company. Mainly how a Project Management Office (PMO) determine its standard and processes, if there is a PMO set up in the company. A PM ought to follow the procedures established by the company and comply with them.
Can we make changes to those procedures that are not supporting our work? Yes, we can do that, and we need to provide evidence and benchmark against another standard as a reference for comparison. Usually, such changes have to be submitted to a review committee for review before deciding. It is important to note that one needs to follow the existing guidelines before the decision is out.
We need to remember that the standards and regulations are around to help us do our work easier. They are allowing us to have a common understanding to prevent assumptions and different base of comparison. If these are not supportive of what we are doing, we need to review and make changes. If we change the way we work without following the guidelines, everyone can choose to do what they like. It will be tough for an organisation to functions and for the projects to execute smoothly.
Such Compliance, Standards and Regulations are here to help us, not deter or punish us.
Execution of this CE depends on the other CEs and cannot happen in a silo. The other CEs include Leadership, Negotiation, Design, Quality, Risk & Opportunity and many others, supporting each other.
Thank you for reading, and I hope it gives you a glimpse into this Compliance, Standards and Regulations CE. I will write on the next competence element in the Perspective Competence Area, “Power & Interest”, in my subsequent sharing.
If you are keen to know more about PMAS, you can check this link out https://pma.sg/ and follow my hashtag to learn more about the CE in IPMA Individual Competence Baseline (ICB) Version 4.0.
