Industry Standards: Why Your Organization Should Care

Long ago, U.S. states set their own standards for railroads, meaning tracks did not align as trains traveled cross country, creating more than an inconvenience. The technology industry also requires standards, which underpin a wide swath of technical and analytical work at organizations. Standards dictate how data is exchanged, business processes are structured, software is designed, mobile phones work and governments stave off cyberattacks. Is your manufacturing, financial services, insurance, transportation or telecommunications company engaged in standards work? As a rule, the answer would be no. Standards tend to be created by a small number of technology companies and, while many vendors donate time on behalf of their customers, self-serving elements are at work. Ever wonder why certain, widely practiced disciplines like requirements definition, customer journey mapping and “high-level process” design lack standards, or why your requirements tool does not integrate with other tools? There are 100s of thousands of business professionals engaged in these disciplines, yet few if any standards support their work. In spite of these factors, the majority of companies across multiple industries are not involved in standards development, even as their work products continue to be misaligned or poorly defined, driving up costs and degrading the customer experience. This episode of The North Star will focus on the important, often overlooked role of industry standards and discuss why organizations should get involved in standards creation. William Ulrich welcomes Steve Nunn, CEO of The Open Group, and Dr. Richard Soley, CEO of the Object Management Group, two global industry standards associations that have a greater impact on your organization than you might imagine. The discussion will explore the current state of standards work and why more organizations should get involved. Check out this episode and get a behind the scenes look at this critically important, yet largely ignored topic.