• 

Project Editors and Co-Editors.
Attributes, skills, roles and responsibilities

by Ariosto Farias Jr.

• Purpose
• Background
• Attributes and skills
• Roles and responsibilities
• Performance monitoring, evaluation and follow-up
• Action taken in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27
• Bibliography
• Annex A: Project Editor Feedback Questionnaire

Purpose

This paper is based on the principle that every task, every activity and every process can be improved. The idea is to apply continual improvement in the development of ISO standards.

Continual improvement is a tool used by all management systems, like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 20000, ISO 22000, ISO 27001 and others.

Even world class organizations, by these I mean those that set global benchmarks, apply the principle of continual improvement.

There is a famous management statement that says: Try to do today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today by avoiding that the same problem can occur again in other projects.

In order to achieve the objectives and goals established or even to exceed them, it is important to apply the principle of lessons learned.

This paper was presented to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 and resulted in a decision to update their management guidelines.

Background

Experience has shown that the development of many ISO projects (i.e. International Standards) takes a longer period of time than initially planned or expected. In addition to other factors, such as the complexity of the project, it is believed that this delay is due, in part, to a lack of attributes and skills possessed by Editors, in managing all the necessary tasks required to facilitate an effective and efficient outcome.

We applaud the efforts of all the Editors who dedicate a lot of time and effort to run a project and we thank them very much for their huge contribution to the development of ISO standards.

However, different people have different skills, and not everyone has the skills necessary to be an effective project Editor. In some cases, people are better able to contribute to projects as subject matter experts than as editors. If people do not have, or are weak in maintaining, the necessary attributes and skills to manage all the necessary project activities, the consequences can be the failure of a project to progress in both a timely and orderly manner.

Attributes and skills

Editors shall posses and further enhance their own personal attributes and the skills necessary to enable them to manage all aspects of a project’s development. All of these attributes and skills, when applied in an effective manner, will ensure that each project will be consistently and progressively developed in a high quality manner without undue delays.

Personal attributes and skills of Editors include, but are not necessarily are limited to:

1. being capable of performing pre-planning and preparation activities (i.e. comment consolidation and in the forming of initial opinions);
2. being self-organized and efficient in terms of time management, prioritization, project planning and meeting management;
3. being knowledgeable and having working experience in the subject area of the project;
4. maintaining a mindset open to consideration of alternative ideas or points of view, recognizing that there is frequently more than one valid approach;
5. being able to encourage consensus by identifying alternatives that may resolve contentious issues;
6. being able to capture and translate into written form communications, decisions and other major aspects of meetings for future review;
7. being diplomatic in dealing with all scenarios that may arise within a group;
8. being persistent by focusing on achieving the established objectives for the project;
9. encouraging of all to work as a team and being able to ensure that everyone in a meeting is given the opportunity to contribute;
10. effectively communicating and maintaining contact with the members within the team in an easy and understandable manner whilst at all times being mindful of differing language issues;
11. being knowledgeable in the prevention and resolution of conflicts that may arise during meetings;
12. having good oral communication skills so that they can be heard during meetings, understand what is being said by others in a meeting, and clearly summarize and otherwise express themselves to a meeting; and
13. having good written communication skills so that they can make sure that documents they produce are in a consistent style, logically organized, do not contain unnecessary jargon and colloquial expressions, and are likely to be readily understood by the target audience.

In order to avoid an overload and to assure that the Editors will have enough time to concentrate on the project, it is highly recommended that the Editors should work in one project at a time.

Where appointed project Editors are not proficient in the English language, they are encouraged to seek an English language technical writer to review their document text at key stages of the development lifecycle (i.e. immediately prior to the issuing of both the last working draft (WD) and final committee draft (FCD) version stages of the document’s development lifecycle).

The engagement of an English language technical writer to assist the Editor is aimed at strengthening the main project document text as it is maturing to a point that further facilitates NBS (national standards body) contributor efficiency (i.e. in terms of expert reviewing time, contributions and time expended at meetings)

Undesirable attributes of Editors include, but not necessarily are limited to:

1. lack of commitment;
2. imposing themselves in an intimidating manner to the team;
3. assuming they know all that needs to be known, including a specific unchangeable outcome, and that their job is to get everyone else to agree to it;
4. being dismissive of contributions without due consideration;
5. being communicative in a one-way manner (i.e. not seeking the opinion of others);
6. not maintaining a solid understanding and appreciation of the overall project material (including various draft texts, outcomes of past contributions and discussions); and
7. unnecessarily repeating points, issues or topics that had been previously agreed without due cause (i.e. new valid input contributions).

Roles and responsibilities

The role of the Editor is complex and includes the management of a standards development project, meeting and people management, and all aspects of document drafting. Project editors should not underestimate the extent of work required before, during and after meetings to achieve the successful delivery of a developed standard. Project Editors should not accept a nomination if they are not confident in their own ability to commit the necessary time to undertake the work required in a timely manner for the anticipated duration of the project (which can be up to five years).

The roles and responsibilities of Editors include:

1. being an active member of the Working Group to which his/her project is assigned and shall attend all sessions at which the project is reviewed and discussed;
   a)  Absences should occur on an exception basis only. Where an Editor cannot attend a meeting they must:
   –  advise both the Working Group Convener and the Co-Editor, if one exists, as soon as the absence is known; and
   –  send both the Working Group Convener and the Co-Editor the Word versions, and any other raw formatted information (i.e. Powerpoint slides for diagrams), of all documents they are responsible for editing during that particular meeting.
2. following the instructions given by the Working Group to which their project is assigned as well as any instructions given by the Subcommittee;
3. ensuring the timely and orderly progression of their project, including the meetings and all deadlines agreed to by the Working Group or Subcommittee;
4. following the ISO editing guidelines and producing relevant documents by using ISO templates;
5. having access to the appropriate IT tools;
6. having sufficient time to carry out the work;
7. acting in a neutral and purely international capacity without national body bias;
8. not advocating a national body position when performing in the capacity of an Editor;
   a)  Where required to advocate a national body position (i.e. in the absence of other like national body members), clearly expressing this temporary change of role and capacity.
9. advising of actions undertaken on comments received on drafts (i.e. produce a proposed disposition of comments document) and on associated issues, as required by the Working Group or Subcommittee;
   a)  Editors may consult with an editing team or a Co-Editor, or may delegate this task to a Co-Editor, if necessary. Any such delegation shall be done on an exception basis and in consultation with the Working Group Convener and the Subcommittee Secretariat.
   b)  When preparing the proposed disposition of comments document, the Project Editor shall organize the comments in a manner that will allow the efficient review and agreement (e.g. by clause number rather than by national body submission). Disposition of comments reports should contain sufficient detail for a national body to understand what has been undertaken in response to their comment, whether or not a national body delegate was able to attend the editing meeting.
10. prepare documents for comment or ballot;
    a)  Such a revised document shall reflect only those changes as agreed by the Working Group or Subcommittee and shall not reflect the Editor’s personal preferences.
    b)  Editors may consult with an editing team or Co-Editor, or may delegate this task to a Co-Editor, if necessary. Any such delegation shall be done on an exception basis and in consultation with the Working Group Convener and the Subcommittee Secretariat.
11. maintain project documents throughout the respective stages of technical work, i.e. until publication; and
12. maintain an updated version of the output document incorporating all approved Corrigenda and Amendments so that a revision may be published with minimum delay when appropriate.

Performance monitoring, evaluation and follow-up

Where Editors find that they are unable to fulfill their duties or become unable to satisfy the criteria defined within this document, they should discuss their concerns with the Convenor of the Working Group. Examples of areas for consideration include:

1. failure to attend two consecutive meetings;
2. failure to deliver assigned deliverables in accordance with Working Group instructions and in a timely manner according to the project target dates;
3. having received unfavourable evaluation feedback from a majority of members of the project (one by Country), based on the questionnaire (Annex A).

Where an Editor has elected to submit their resignation letter, the Subcommittee has the right to appoint a Co-Editor as the new Project Editor.

In the case where a Co-Editor decided not to accept the primary editing role, the Subcommittee Secretariat shall advise the Subcommittee and issue a call to national bodies for nominations to fill the vacant position.

Should an Editor fail to fulfill his duties, the Subcommittee has the right and obligation to dismiss the current Editor and appoint a new Project Editor.

At the end of each meeting the members of the project will be asked to provide feedback in relation to how the meeting was conducted by completing a questionnaire (Annex A).

Action taken in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27

As a result of this proposal from Brazil, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 updated their management guidelines to:

1. include additional material concerning requirements for, and expectations of, project editorsbasedontheproposalinsection4above;
2. include an annex containing project editor attributes and skills based on clause 3 above;
3. add requirements for meeting evaluations; and
4. encourage working group convenors to monitor project progress and to coach and mentor project editors.

Bibliography

(1) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37 Standing Document 3 (SD3) – April 2008: Project Editor Roles and Responsibilities.

(2) Revised version of Standing Document 5 (SD5): ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 27 Management Guidelines (2009-02-17).

Annex

• Annex A: Project Editor Feedback Questionnaire (PDF, 16kB)

 

Note: The author thanks John Snare and Dale Johnstone, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 experts from Australia, for the valuable contributions received during the preparation of this paper.

July 1, 2009