Preliminary stage – Preliminary Work Item (PWI)

Is there a clear scope?

Clear scope. ISO Directives states that "The Scope clearly defines the subject of the document..." and "The Scope shall be succinct so that it can be used as a summary for bibliographic purposes, for example, as an abstract." In addition, for multipart standards "...the Scope of each part shall define the subject of that part of the document only." The work needs to fit in the Scope of ISO/TC 211 found on the first page of the ISO/TC 211 website, but also in the Scope of the working group you want the document to be assigned to.

New idea. It needs to be verified in that the idea has not already been suggested and recorded in the ISO/TC 211 Standards Tracker. If it has then you can comment or suggest additions to this existing idea. For discussion, please contact Advisory Group 3 Programme Maintenance Group (PMG), via the secretariat or at a PMG meeting announced in the ISO Meetings and on the ISO/TC 211 website plenary meetings tab.

Preliminary Work Item (PWI)/pilot study/stage 0 project

If you have a good idea you might consider starting a preliminary work. The TC may decide by resolution or ballot, normally after recommendation from a working group, to register a Preliminary work item (PWI). The PWI is a viable outline or draft for a future standard, not yet sufficiently mature for further stages, and for which no target dates can yet be set. A pilot study (in ISO/TC 211 often referred to as a Stage 0 project) will be carried out to prepare the work for future stages. The project is intended to last between two plenary sessions, and the resulting Stage 0 report (also called a Summary Review report), is sent to the working group that the Stage 0 project is assigned to. 

A recommendation for the formatting of the Stage 0 report, is that it contains an extensive outline of the proposed standard and preferably a draft. This will make it easier to continue to the next stage which is to submit an NWIP (ISO Form 4), please read more in next section.

Other ways to propose a Preliminary Work Item (PWI)

Not all new idea comes from the internal work of the TC so other ways a PWI could be created is if one of the following suggest it:

• a National Body;
• the secretariat;
• an A liaison organization;
• another technical committee or subcommittee;
• the technical management board or one of its advisory groups;
• the Chief Executive Officer