Beginning in the mid-1990s, people who were interested in the development of global project management standards began meeting, both formally and informally, during various project management conferences. In 1999, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) initiated a series of Global Working Parties, including one focused specifically on project management standards. The newly formed "standards working party met" at a number of project management conferences that featured international representation. During these meetings, number of initiatives were identified. One of these was the opportunity for the development of global performance based standards for project personnel that would complement existing knowledge based standards (such as the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, the Association for Project Management’s Body of Knowledge, International Project Management Association’s International Competence Baseline, and Japan’s Guidebook for Project and Program Management for Enterprise Innovation) and at the same time provide a basis for transferability and mutual recognition of project management qualifications.
