1. IEEE Standards Development
Guided by five principles
Ensuring integrity and wide acceptance
for IEEE standards
• Due process means developing procedures, making them publicly available, and following them. This also means that you need to know the procedures of the IEEE-SA Standards Board, your society, and your technical committee.
• Openness ensures that everyone has access to the process. This is accomplished by making sure that all interested and affected parties can participate in your working group and that all actions are publicly available.
• Consensus means the majority agrees on an issue. While mostly employed during the balloting process, consensus can also be used to help resolve contentious working group issues as well.
• Balance is used during the balloting stage of a draft standard. It is achieved by composing a balloting group that includes a balance between the basic categories of producers, users, and general interest.
• Appeals can be made at any time in the process—even after approval of the standard. In the IEEE, appeals can be technical (which is heard at the Sponsor) or procedural (which is heard at the Standards Board).
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2. Introduction
Standards, unlike many other types of written guidelines, are quasi-legal documents.
Standards are used as evidence, either to substantiate or to refute points, in courts of law.
Standards also often become legal requirements as they are adopted by various governments and by regulatory agencies.
The process by which they are developed falls under scrutiny far more than other documents and papers.
That's why the standards process follows five imperative principles.
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3. Due Process Develop operating procedures
Publish and make procedures available
Follow procedures
The following points define due process:
• Operating procedures should have been or should be developed within your working group. For instance, it should be stated what is needed to establish a quorum to vote on an issue. Check your society and sponsor procedures for guidance. The IEEE Standards Department also has a presentation on preparing procedures.
• All procedures should be published and available.
• Follow your procedures in your working group meetings.
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4. Openness Everyone has access to the process
Make information and actions publicly available for examination
Include all materially interested and affected parties
Avoid antitrust situations/appearance of collusion
Opportunity to participate does not necessarily mean membership or a vote
• Bullet 1: Openness means ensuring that everyone has access to the process.
• Bullets 2 & 3: Openness is accomplished by making sure that all information and actions are made publicly available and that all affected parties have been invited to participate in your working group. This is usually achieved by having readily available minutes of the meetings.
• Bullet 4: The purpose of all of this is to avoid the appearance of collusion, or seeming to obstruct anyone from participating. Openness also provides protection against antitrust situations. Since standards are so broadly used and often carry the weight of the law, it is important to allow all parties to participate and be heard to avoid a situation that would imply that any company or individual was restricted from speaking.
• Bullet 5: Working groups are open to anyone—participants don’t even have to be IEEE members. However, it’s usual to have a procedure for determining voting rights in the working group. This can be as simple as “anyone can vote” to allowing members to vote contingent on attendance. The voting rules do not preclude a participant’s right to comment at any meeting.
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5. Consensus Agreement among the majority
Not 100% agreement
Defined in the IEEE Sponsor balloting rules as 75% of 75%
• Consensus means agreement among the majority.
• You should strive for as high a level of consensus as possible, but consensus does not mean unanimity.
• According to the IEEE rules, consensus is defined as a minimum 75% return of ballots from the balloting group, and a 75% approval rate from that 75% return group.
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6. Consensus Obligation to the majority Obligation to the minority
Approve and make available expeditiously
Obligation to the minority
Attempt to resolve comments
The consensus process is easily the most challenging and time-consuming part of the standards procedure. There are many factors to balance.
Once you have achieved consensus, an obligation to the majority exists to approve and publish the standard quickly.
However, you are obligated to respond to the negative comments of the minority. You should attempt to resolve those negative comments, but if there is no indication that further resolution can be achieved based on that, you should move your document forward for approval, still having met the terms of consensus.
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7. Balance
Representation from all materially interested and affected parties
Goal for development
Encourage participation during standard’s draft development stages
Mandatory for balloting
Lack of dominance by any one interest group
Common categories for interest groups:
Producer, user, and general interest
Balance comes into play when forming the balloting group (after the draft standard has been completed and voted on by the working group).
• All interested and affected parties should be invited to be part of the balloting group.
• The group must consist of a balance of a variety of interests, without domination by any one group or company.
• Balance is achieved by placing potential balloters into one of three common categories—producer, user, and general interest. Additional categories can be added when needed. No one category can be 50% or more of the full balloting group.
• It is ideal to have a balance of participants throughout the process, whether it’s in your working group or balloting group.
• Encourage participation in your working groups, where balance is less of an issue. If attending meetings is a problem for potential members, consider allowing them to participate via regular mail, teleconferences, or .
• Balance is mandatory for your balloting group. A ballot cannot start until the balloting group is balanced and approved by the sponsor.
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8. Right of Appeal The right to initiate a challenge of the process
Bases of appeal can be
Technical (within Sponsor)
Procedural
• The right to appeal means that any person has the right to appeal a standard during any stage and have the case heard by the respective authoritative body depending on the stage of the standard.
• Each working group should follow the appeals policy of their sponsor or the IEEE-SA Standards Board.
• The two types of appeals are technical in nature or procedural. Most appeals are technical in nature and should be addressed at the Sponsor level. If you have a procedural issue for appeal, make sure it is truly procedural. Many procedural issues mask technical ones.
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