This page lists a number of resources available to those wishing to learn more about standardization, standards organizations, and the standards process, or to set up and implement a standards process within an organization. I'll be continually adding more links to this page.

Essential Documents and Best Practices

Training Resources

Standards Blogs and Web Pages

I'll recommend, of course, my blog on standards best practices. I generally avoid the news of the day, though I use current situations as object lessons in how to structure an organization and its policies to prevent various problems that organizations occasionally encounter. This is a continuation of the Kavi Standards Blog I wrote while at Kavi.

ConsortiumInfo.org is Andy Updegrove's excellent site on consortia and standards setting, including daily news and commentary, monthly email newsletter, and bibliography of standards-related publications. 

An overview of standards activities within the U.S. federal government is at www.Standards.gov.

A list of academic papers, lectures, and book reviews written by Ken Krechmer on the subject of standards is found at http://www.csrstds.com/klist.html

Publications

Two books by Carl Cargill of Sun Microsystems provide background on standards setting practice and theory, Information Technology Standardization: Theory, Process, and Organizations (1989, Digital Equipment Corp.) and Open Systems Standardization: A Business Approach (1997, Prentice Hall PTR).

The Bolin Group has published a series of volumes of papers presented at their Standards Edge conferences.  

The Standards Engineering Society (SES) has a list of standards-related publications on their web site. 

Other collections of (mostly academic) papers are available in Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure, ed. Brian Kahin and Janet Abbate, MIT Press 1995; Information Standards and Standardization: A Global Perspective, ed. Kai Jakobs, Idea Group Publishing 2000; and Information Technology Standards and Standarization Research, ed. Kai Jakobs, Idea Group Publishing 2006.

The American Bar Association has published a guide to patent and IPR policy in standards setting, Standards Development Patent Policy Manual, ed. Jorge Contreras, 2007.

Existing Work

Before starting a new standards organization or activity, I recommend spending a bit of time to see if there's already an existing organization or activity that you could participate in. This saves a lot of duplication of effort and prevents market confusion. 

Partial lists of existing standards organizations are available at ANSI, CEN, SES, WSSN, and ConsortiumInfo.org.

Partial lists of existing completed standards are at NSSN. You should also check with the individual organizations to see what work they have completed or is in progress.

Standards are available for purchase from IHS, ILI, ANSI, TechStreet, and other sources listed here, or for free or fee from the individual standards organizations.

Consulting Resources

I provide Standards Best Practices consulting on organizational structure, startups, membership policies, technical committee process and administration, and training of organization staff and volunteers. I can be reached here.

I strongly recommend Andy Updegrove for legal issues related to standards organizations and consortia including incorporation and bylaws, IPR and patent policy, safe harbor, open source, etc.

Consulting for the corporate side of standards participation is provided by GTW Associates and by Intellectual Property Shield.

Organizational Hosting Services

Organizations that are too small to be able to afford hiring fulltime staff, need a virtual office, or need ocassional marketing or event management serrvices should consider using an Association Management Company (AMC). Association management and hosting services are provided by companies such as Virtual, VTM, Global Inventures, and Forapolis. These service providers work using a variety of models, from providing an ala carte menu of services up to making your standards activity part of their organization's process such as at IEEE-ISTO and OASIS.

My Published Papers

The following are papers I've presented at academic conferences or published on company websites.

Foundations for Successful Standards Setting-Properly Defining and Implementing Policies and Procedures

This white paper defines a number of best practices for standards-setting organizations and industry consortia. By proper definition and administration of organizational structure, policies, and procedures, a standards-setting organization or industry consortium can establish a strong foundation for success and avoid many of the problems that could interfere with the organization producing the work for which it was chartered. Basing the development of technical work on a strong technical process, staying on a strong financial footing, and protecting the organization from risk all contribute to the ability of the organization to meet its objectives.

Available from this website here. Also available from Kavi.

Principles to Live By - Guiding Principles for a Standards Technical Process

This white paper discusses a number of general principles upon which the technical process of a standards-setting organization should be based. These principles are defined in three related documents, the U.S. Standards Strategy, the ANSI Essential Requirements, and the World Trade Organization's Technical Barriers to Trade agreement. By taking into account the principles and best practices of Openness, Balance, Transparency, Coherence, etc. in the technical process, a standards-setting organization will produce higher quality specifications that meet market and industry needs and are more likely to be adopted and implemented.

Available from this website here. Also available from Kavi.

Reducing the Cost of Standards Activities

The costs of creating standards can be significant, with possible totals in the millions of dollars for a single standard. Costs include such things as the standards infrastructure, organizational membership dues, and travel for meetings, but the most significant cost is that of the people doing the work of developing the specification. Some amount of cost savings can be realized by streamlining the development and approval process, and costs can be spread by increasing the number of participants. But with the most significant costs coming from the time and effort of the participants, the greatest amount of savings can come from making the development process more efficient, which is most easily accomplished by providing the participants with modern electronic collaborative tools.

Paper and slides presented at the 12th EURAS Workshop on Standardisation, May 2007 in Thessaloniki, Greece. An earlier version is also available from Kavi.

Convergence and Harmonization of Standards Organizations

Accredited and non-accredited standards organizations, commonly referred to as “SDOs” and “SSOs” respectively, are more alike than usually thought. Both rely on volunteers to provide their time and effort and to apply their domain expertise to create industry, national, and international standards. Both face similar challenges with regards to IPR issues, governance, business models, membership recruitment and retention, and promotion of work products. Accreditation by itself is not a valid distinguishing feature; many unaccredited organizations are fully qualified to become accredited and would do so if only they saw the need or benefit. The perceived differences between these types of organizations, while loosely based on historical practices, depend mostly upon whom one asks. In addition, the two types of organizations are becoming more like each other as their practices become more closely aligned and as they reach out to work with each other, recognizing the value of each others’ efforts.

Paper and slides presented at the 5th IEEE Conference on Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology (SIIT 2007) in Calgary, October 2007. 

Is Accreditation Important in Standards Work?

Among the hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations which develop standards there is a wide range of organizational structures, practices and policies, and levels of recognition or accreditation. But accredited and unaccredited standards organizations, commonly referred to as “SDOs” and “SSOs” respectively, are more alike than usually thought, and over the past decade have been converging in their practices and recognition of each others’ work. One may ask what the difference is between these organizations, as accreditation by itself is not a valid distinguishing feature – many unaccredited organizations are fully qualified to become accredited and would do so if only they saw the need or benefit. Standards used for such important technical advances as the World Wide Web come from unaccredited organizations, and users of standards seem to care little if the work was done in an accredited environment or not. So does accreditation matter?

Paper to be published in the forthcoming International Journal of Information Technology Standards and Standardization Research (JITSR). This is a later version of the previous paper "Convergence and Harmonization of Standards Organizations."