Already a leading educator in project management The University of Technology, Sydney has helped develop a first-ever set of performance-based competency standards for project managers around the world.

Senior Lecturer in Project Management in the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, Dr Lynn Crawford, has led a seven-year world-wide initiative that has culminated in what she calls the "international passport" for the transportability and mutual recognition of project management qualifications.

The recently completed process has created the Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS), a volunteer organisation that will administer an assessment framework that is "free for anyone to use".

"Standards have long been a subject of debate in project management," Dr Crawford said. "As a relatively young branch of management its practitioners have sought to identify who and what they are and create a profession.

"Professional associations have sprung up around the world each with their own knowledge standards and certification, but since the mid-1990s the push has been on to develop global performance standards.

"Businesses that operate across national boundaries, governments concerned with ensuring an internationally competitive workforce and individuals desiring greater mobility have all wanted transferable standards that describe levels of acceptable workplace performance.

"Motorola and Shell are among the first to be looking at the GAPPS standards as the basis for their internal accreditation and Rolls Royce has already used GAPPS research to categorise the complexity of its projects."

Dr Crawford said GAPPS, which involved academic institutions, standards organisations, professional associations and industry, had based its work on performance standards developed in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK since the 1980s.

The GAPPS assessment sets benchmarks in areas including the management of stakeholder relationships, the development of project plans, project progress, product acceptance, project transitions and the evaluation and improvement of project performance.

"The GAPPS standards are purely voluntary and for the public good," Dr Crawford said.

"We won't confer a qualification, but we will audit the internal assessment processes of organisations that subscribe to GAPPS. If successful they will become an endorsed provider and be allowed to use the GAPPS logo.

"Professional associations – especially those that do not have their own standards or qualifications – are being encouraged to subscribe to GAPPS, as are standards and qualifications bodies around the world."

For more information on GAPPS visit: http://www.globalpmstandards.org/