NF ISO 21500

This document gives guidelines for project management. It is applicable to any organization, including public, private and charitable, as well as to any type of project, regardless of purpose, delivery approaches, life cycle model used, complexity, size, cost or duration. NOTE Delivery approach can be any method or process suited to the type of outputs, such as predictive, incremental, iterative, adaptive or hybrid, including agile approaches. This document provides high-level descriptions of practices that are considered to work well and produce good results within the context of project management. This document does not provide guidance on the management of programmes or portfolios. Topics relating to general management are addressed only within the context of project management.

This document specifies the organizational context and underlying concepts for undertaking project, programme and portfolio management. It also provides guidance for organizations to adopt or improve project, programme and portfolio management using the standards prepared by ISO/TC 258. This document is applicable to most organizations, including public and private organizations and it is not dependent on the size and type of the organization. It is also applicable to any project, programme and portfolio, regardless of complexity, size or duration. Further guidance on project, programme and portfolio management, and the governance thereof, is given in ISO 21502, ISO 21503, ISO 21504 and ISO 21505.