Great Expectations: ISO 20700 Management Consultancy

It is extremely likely that most people eventually come to recognize ISO as a brand representing quality in some way.  The ISO organization helps to set many requirements that ensure that a specific standard is being met, helping all stakeholders find and select the better products and/or services.  The two most popular standards are the families of ISO 9000:Quality Management and ISO 14000:Environmental Management. 

As a Certified Management Consultant (CMC), when I first heard of the ISO 20700 standard, relating to Management Consultancy, I had a lot of questions, but no easy answers.  I was familiar with an increasing demand for service companies, such as CMCs, to become ISO 9001 certified, so perhaps ISO 20700 would be more specific to management consultancy.  Would ISO 20700 be another standard under which dedicated professional management consultants could be certified?  Would such an ISO 20700 standard certification be something that complemented or competed with the CMC designation?  How much better would an ISO 20700 certification improve client awareness of certified vs non-certified management consultants?  How much would it cost to get certified under the ISO 20700?  How would you maintain it, year after year? What would all stakeholders, including consultants and clients, come to expect from the ISO 20700 standard, and by extension, would this drive market demand for this new ISO 20700 standard when hiring management consultants?

In my quest for additional information, my attempt at getting a *mere* copy of the draft ISO 20700 standard is worthy of an adventure film, full of cryptic codes, treasure maps and clues hidden throughout the vastness of the internet.  To this day I fail to understand how public consultation on the ISO 20700 standard is achieved when the only apparent method of getting a *draft* copy of the ISO 20700 standard is by purchasing a copy from www.iso.org for CHF58 (about CAD$80).  

The only free material from ISO was a copy of their briefing notes, which not only left my questions unanswered, but setup a whole bunch of expectations, with ideas such as:

  • "improving the quality, professionalism and interoperability of management consultancy",
  • "reduce the risk of management consultancy services for organizations",
  • and most importantly, "receive reliable ... management consultancy services with more predictable outcomes".

To learn more, at first I resisted having to purchase the ISO 20700 *draft* by resorting to a free copy of the final draft for the European Standard on which ISO 20700 is based: EN16114:2011

This route seemed like a good approach, especially since the number of pages and the table of contents of both documents (ISO 20700) are pretty much identical, validating the fact that the EN16114:2011 standard is the initial copy/paste for the ISO 20700 standard.

From my first reading of EN16114:2011, the most important points that surprised me were in the Scope section:

  • "It is not intended for certification, regulatory or contractual use, and it is not intended nor designed to be used as the basis for any personal or organizational qualification." (p.6) 

  • that, "Any offer to certify, or claims to be certified, to this European Standard would be a misrepresentation of the intent and purpose and misuse of this European Standard.  As this European Standard does not contain requirements, any such certification would not be a demonstration of conformity with this European Standard." (p.6)

Without going further, it immediately seems counter-productive to base the ISO 20700 standard on the EN16114:2011 standard that highlights how it is not intended for certification, and contains no requirements!  

 As a stakeholder, either as a client or service provider, without establishing the requirements to form the basis of the ISO 20700 standard, why would anyone be interested in such a standard?  Could this, if fact, be called a "standard"?  How would a client be able to differentiate between management service consultancy providers (MCSPs) or expect better results from an engagement without requirements?  It would seem that the client would have to personally ensure that the MCSP covers all the relevant points of the standard, since, by definition, the MCSP can't reasonably guarantee any certification to the standard!

 In other words, the EN16114:2011 specifically defines a complete project-cycle view and numerous best practices that ensure the success of management consultancy projects, however, it stops short of listing any requirements and consequently fails to create the basis of a certification process to help clients identify those MCSPs that successfully and consistently apply the EN16114 standard.

 To complicate the issue further, the EN16114:2011 standard further indicates, on page 5. that it: 

  • "[is] written from the perspective of the service provider"
  • "(b) does not require certification"
  • "(c) focuses on MCSPs, not on clients"

This obviously can't be correct since it is implying that the standard must be validated by the clients, since there is no third-party certification entity to validate adherence to the standard, yet, how can it leave out the clients?

 At this point, it was necessary for me to finally purchase a copy of the draft ISO 20700 standard, and confirm to what extent the text EN16114:2011 had made it into the new ISO 20700 standard via the copy-pasting exercise.

 When reviewing the most troubling points already outlined above, I noticed a few interesting differences in the 'Introduction' section:

  • "(b) does not require certification" was deleted completely, and 
  • "(c) focuses on MCSPs, not on clients" has become "(b) is applicable to all MCSPs" (p.4)
    • it is obvious that the exclusion of clients is left out in the rewrite to precisely include them in on the whole process of the ISO 20700 standard, right?

The 'Scope' section from EN16114 to ISO 20700 has been completely reduced from a full page to a mere 5 lines, 2 of which still clearly indicate that "[the ISO 20700 standard] does not require or imply a need for certification and it is not intended or designed to be used as the basis for any personal or organizational qualification or certification."

So far, it seems that for all the editing, we are still left with an ISO 20700 standard which is not a "certification" standard, and its usefulness is still in question when it comes to how clients can make use of it to ensure they wisely hire the right MCSPs.

Our initial insight, at seeing how this standard requires clients to actively understand it and use it when engaging with MCSPs, is finally validated in section 4.1 of the ISO 20700, with the insertion of the following:

"The MCSP and client should agree on a suitable methodology for on-going evaluation and feedback throughout the assignment.  The MCSP is responsible for its resources and their work, however the ultimate accountability for decisions, outcomes, outputs and the impacts on stakeholders lies with the client."  (pp 7-8)

Absolutely incredible.

So, why all the hype of coming up with a standard whose primary objective is to raise the quality of management consultancy services and strive for more predictable outcomes only to then throw the accountability back on the client?  I wonder what clients would have to say about this.  Why follow the ISO 20700 standard or even hire MCSPs?

As CMCs, I can see value in adding the ISO 20700 standard to our tool-box that lists several best practices with regards to the process of starting, delivering, evaluating and closing an engagement.  However, it is clear that the ISO 20700 standard does not even come close to managing the expectations of clients as to what it really means and how it will deliver on its promises.


------------------------------
Carlos Lameiro, BSc, BCom, IEMBA, MCSE-BI, CMC
Director and Senior Consultant
BIAPRO Information Solutions Inc.
Toronto ON
(416) 737-9694
www.bi365.com

------------------------------

Originally posted in Linkedin here.