Roles in committee work
Delegates and experts
At the TC plenary session, the participants are delegates that represent the member countries or liaison organizations. At the working group meetings, however, the participants are experts (and project leads or convenors) that act in a personal capacity and not as the official representative of the member or liaison. (ISO Directives Part 1 clause 1.12)
Working Group Convenor
The overall role of a working group (WG) convenor in ISO/TC 211 is to support the Chair of the committee in a specific area of standardization in geographic information. It is an international responsibility providing international exposure. The convenor leads the development of ISO standards in that area with the support of project leaders and international experts. The convenor monitors and ensures the progress of ISO standardization works assigned to its group, in particular working towards consensus. TC resolution 979 defines the WG convenor responsibility to:
- maintain a documented scope in consultation with the Secretariat;
- proactively manage their Programme of work;
- actively monitor new requirements and technical developments within their scope;
- actively relate to relevant liaisons.
The effort required to carry out the role of a convenor is not negligible. ISO/TC 211 working groups meet whenever required and at least twice a year in connection with the ISO/TC 211 plenary meeting, where the convenor reports to the TC. Read more about the different working groups of ISO/TC 211 at https://committee.iso.org/sites/tc211/home/about/working-groups.html).
The role in the standard development process (see Decision making Document stages) of a WG convenor in ISO/TC 211 is to some degree similar the role of a sub-committee (SC) chair. In this, ISO/TC 211 differs slightly from the approach defined in the ISO Directives, which assume a working group exists for the duration of a single standards development project. ISO/TC 211 also sees value in continuity between the Preparatory, Committee and Enquiry stages, so the working group convenor chairs any editing committee needed to resolve comments (see TC 211/N 5243).
To support this, the TC chair delegates to the WG convenors, in consultation with the Secretariat (ISO Directives 2.5 and 2.6) to:
- recommend circulation of CD ballot;
- propose actions based on the result from the editing committee at CD stage;
- recommend circulation of DIS ballot or a second CD;
- propose actions based on the result from the editing committee at DIS stage;
- recommend publication;
- record these informal decisions (to be defined).
The co-operation with the Secretariat and other ISO/TC 211 groups is crucial and the convenor reports progress and requirements for new activities to the committee programme maintenance group (PMG) and to the TC. The convenor is a member of the Chair Advisory Group (CAG) and the Advisory Group on Strategy (AG 2). The convenor monitors the WG interaction to all other TC groups specifically the Maintenance groups (HMMG, TMG, GOM, XML), and Outreach (AG 1). For the practical management of the WG, the convenor uses the resources ISO Documents, ISO Meetings and ISO Projects.
ISO promotes balance in participation from all regions of the world, and ISO/TC 211 encourages candidates for convenors from all parts of our membership. ISO promotes equal gender representation in standardization, and ISO/TC 211 encourages candidates of all genders Declaration on Gender Responsive Standards.
Read more in: ISO - GETTING STARTED TOOLKIT FOR ISO WORKING GROUP CONVENORS.
Project Leader
The project leader for a new project is named in the ISO Form 4 that is required for all new projects. Similarly, a new revision started as a result of Systematic Review or a Resolution request will need to name a project leader for the project. If no nomination for project lead was made in the systematic review or a project lead is missing from the resolution to approve a new project, a call for a project leader is sent out as a Committee Internal Ballot (CIB). A new project lead can be decided by the TC in a resolution. There can be two project leaders for the same project if they agree to work together.
The project leader is responsible for the content of the document, see Content of the document. Note that this applies regardless if there is another appointed project editor or not. See ISO Directives Part 1 clause 2.1.8.
Project Editor
The project editor is the expert that does the editing of the standard. If no project editor is named for a project the role as project editor falls back to the project leader. This does not exclude other people from helping with writing or giving input to the text in the standard!
Project Team
Usually in the same Call for project lead there will be a Call for Experts. This group of experts will together with the project leader and the project editor become the project team. It is up to the Project Leader with the help of the working group convenor to keep track of who is a named member of the project team. At any time a member can excuse themselves to not continue in the project team and all the ISO/TC 211 P-members and liaisons can at any time nominate experts to become new members of the project team. This request is done with an email to the ISO/TC 211 secretariat, but if the new team member is not already a member of the relevant Working Group, they will be need to be nominated to that Working Group in order to see the documents and attend meetings.
It is important that new experts joining a project team consider that they will be joining into an established consensus and should not unnecessarily seek to reverse decisions already made by the team.
Difference in project work between ISO/TC 211 and ISO in general
According to ISO directives and how most of the support IT-system is built, ISO expects a working group to work on one Standard. Within ISO/TC 211, we have working groups that have more than one project within the same area of expertise. Our working groups have then more the function of what in ISO Directives is described as subcommittees. ISO/TC 211 has for now not divided up the technical committee into subcommittees due to the interdependencies between the different projects.
| Updated | 2021-11-23 |
| Contributors |
Chair |
| Last change | More details on working group convenor |