STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT AT THE IEEE STANDARDS ASSOCIATION
The IEEE creates consensus standards through an open
process that has evolved within the IEEE over the
past century. This process has led to an active portfolio
of over 900 completed standards, recommended practices,
and guides (all are called "standards" below)
and more than 400 projects in development. Given the
interests dominant in the IEEE, these standards documents
tend to cluster in the fields of information technology,
telecommunications and energy and power.
IEEE standards are dynamic documents designed to
ensure products and services fit their purpose and
perform as intended. They clear the way to commercialize
a technology, allowing for interoperability, rapid
design, and easy installation and testing, as well
as protection for users and the environment.
The IEEE is a global standards organization. It draws
on the expertise of IEEE'S 41 Technical Societies
and Councils and ITS more than 360,000 IEEE members
in over 150 countries. Thousands of professionals
participate in IEEE-SA standards activities each year.
Basic Principles
IEEE standards follow a well-defined path from concept
to completion, guided by a set of five basic principles:
due process, openness, consensus, balance and right
of appeal. These imperatives ensure fairness and good
standards practice during the development cycle, and
help validate approved standards. These operating
principles have special import for the IEEE and the
IEEE because the U.S. Department of Justice has held
that standards organizations are responsible for the
actions of their standards developers.
These principles are:
Due process, which means having highly
visible procedures for standards creation and following
them. Procedures are set by the IEEE-SA Standards
Board, the IEEE Societies that sponsor standards,
and the working groups that actually formulate standards.
Openness, which ensures all interested
parties can participate actively in the IEEE standards
development process.
Consensus, which holds that a clearly defined
percentage of those in a balloting group vote to
approve a draft of a standard.
Balance, which ensures that balloting groups
include all interested parties and avoid an overwhelming
influence by any one party.
Right of appeal, which allows anyone to
appeal a standards development decision at any point,
before or after a standard has been approved.
How Standards Are Developed
A standard begins with a project idea, formally known
as a project authorization request (PAR), that is
usually sponsored by the IEEE Society taking responsibility
for the scope and content of a proposed standard.
If an idea interests more than one society, it can
be sponsored by a Standards Coordinating Committee
set up by the IEEE Standards Board. Before taking
on a new standard, the IEEE Standards Board determines
if it is needed and if enough volunteers are likely
to step forward to develop it.
The document to be produced can be either a standard
containing mandatory requirements, a recommended practice
outlining preferred procedures, or a guide offering
suggestions for working with a technology. Projects
involve either new standards, revisions of existing
standards or amendments to existing standards. Standards
have a five-year life, or in the case of trial-use
standards, two years, after which they can be considered
for full status or revised.
The IEEE Standards Board approves or disapproves a
PAR based on a review by its New Standards Committee.
This occurs at quarterly IEEE Standards Board meetings
or by a continuous approval process that allows for
approval of standard projects outside of scheduled
Standards Board meetings. A standards project should
be completed within four years after its PAR is approved.
With PAR approval, the study group becomes a working
group. Working groups are open to the public and should
have well-publicized procedures regarding membership,
voting, officers, recordkeeping and other areas. In
the spirit of openness, agendas for working group
meetings are distributed beforehand and the results
of the group's deliberations are publicly available,
usually through meeting minutes.
Balloting begins when the sponsor decides the draft
of the full standard is stable. The sponsor forms
a balloting group containing persons interested in
the standard. While anyone can contribute comments,
the only votes that count toward approval are those
of the eligible members of the balloting group.
Balloting is a balanced process that prevents any
one group or company from dominating. Balloters usually
fall into one of three classes: producers, users or
general interest. The latter is a broad category that
can include government officials, consultants and
end users. No interest category can comprise over
one-half of the balloting group. The goal in balloting
is to gain the greatest consensus. A standard will
pass if at least 75 percent of all ballots from a
balloting group are returned and if 75 percent of
these bear a "yes" vote. If ballot returns
of 30 percent are abstentions, the ballot fails.
Ballots usually last 30 to 60 days. Balloters can
approve, disapprove, or abstain. They can also approve
or disapprove with comment. If the comments made by
those who disapprove are accepted into the standard,
their votes then move into the approved category with
the agreement of the voter. The ballot resolution
group responds to all comments, whether submitted
by those within or outside of the balloting group.
Editorial comments are often straightforward; changes
to the standard based on technical comments are recirculated.
Anyone can appeal actions and decisions made during
the process at any time. Before IEEE-SA Standards
Board approval, complaints are handled by the Sponsor.
After approval, they are handled by the IEEE-SA Standards
Board if the issue is procedural or by the Sponsor
if the issue is technical.
Approval, Publication and Beyond
The IEEE Standards Board approves or disapproves
standards based on the recommendation of its Standards
Review Committee. This committee makes sure working
groups follow all procedures and guiding principles
in drafting and balloting a standard. As with PARs,
completed draft standards come before the Board four
times a year or during the continuous approval process.
After approval, the standard is edited by an IEEE-SA
editor, given a final review by the members of the
working group, and published.
Once a standard is in use, there may be a need to
clarify some portions of it. This is done through
an interpretations process based on questions officially
submitted to the IEEE-SA. Interpretations are prepared
by the sponsor. Completed interpretations are published
on the IEEE-SA website, within a standard, or in a
separate interpretations volume.
A standard is valid for five years from its publication
date. During this time, a working group can develop
and ballot revisions or extensions to the standard,
which are appended as amendments. After five years,
a standard is reaffirmed, revised or withdrawn.
Reaffirmation occurs when there is no need to update
the standard or its amendments. During the process,
the entire document is open for comment. Balloters
vote for acceptance of the entire document as is.
If the ballot fails, a revision is usually recommended.
A reaffirmation ballot calls for the formation of
a balanced ballot body and consensus approval (75
percent return and 75 percent approval). After approval
by the Standards Board, the standard remains in force
for another five years.
Revisions require PAR approval and follow the normal
balloting process (75 percent return and 75 percent
approval) and approval by the Standards Board. Out-of-date
standards can be withdrawn by going through a balloting
process that requires a 50 percent return and a 75
percent approval rate.
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For Further Information
The following Internet locations contain additional
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