ISO 15188:2001

Overview

ISO 15188:2001 - Project management guidelines for terminology standardization - provides practical guidance on managing terminology standardization projects. Published by ISO/TC 37, it focuses on the project lifecycle for producing standardized vocabularies: preparation, design, implementation and review. The standard is intended for projects both inside and outside formal international standardization bodies and emphasizes efficiency, risk avoidance and user-oriented results.

Key topics and requirements

• Project phases: The standard frames terminology work through four phases - preparation, design, implementation and review - and outlines the main activities in each phase.
• Preparation phase:
  • Feasibility assessment (purpose, potential users, user needs, and risk situations).
  • Description of legal, financial and organizational framework (ownership, access, funding, participants, language policy, national variants).
  • Development of a specifications document and acceptance criteria for project approval.
• Design phase:
  • Project leadership and planning: appoint a leader familiar with the subject and terminology methods.
  • Working-group setup: select members based on subject expertise, representation and communication needs (suggested working-group size: 5–8 specialists).
  • Define work plan, responsibilities, time frames, methods, data to record, contingency plans and meeting cadence.
• Roles and organizational models:
  • Describes models where terminologists act as consultants, group members, or lead vocabulary production.
  • Recommends involving experienced terminologists and arranging introductory training for participants.
• Documentation & decision recording: stresses recording decisions, acceptance criteria and records to reduce rework and ensure harmonized output.
• Informative annexes: Annexes A–D provide examples, organizational models, acceptance criteria and project management guidance (for information only).

Practical applications and users

Who benefits:

• Standards developers and technical committees managing terminology work.
• National terminology bodies and language-planning organizations.
• Project managers, terminologists and subject-matter experts preparing terminological vocabularies for standards, glossaries or databases.
• Organizations aiming to harmonize terms across products, regulations or cross-border trade.

Typical uses:

• Planning and running a terminology standardization project with clear legal/financial boundaries.
• Choosing appropriate team models and roles (terminologist vs. terminographer).
• Preparing specifications that reflect user needs and reduce ambiguity from synonymy/polysemy.

Related standards

ISO 15188 is complementary to ISO/TC 37 normative references, including:

• ISO 704 - Terminology work: principles and methods
• ISO 860 - Harmonization of concepts and terms
• ISO 10241 - Preparation and layout of terminology standards
• ISO/TR 12618, ISO 1087-1, and project/quality guidance such as ISO 10006

Keywords: ISO 15188, terminology standardization, project management guidelines, ISO/TC 37, terminologist, terminology projects, standardization project.