Can we rate standards organizations like we rate restaurants?

As the summer holiday season approaches, I follow with interest the appearance of this year’s batch of restaurant guides. Alongside the voluminous old favourites such as the Guides Michelin and Gault Millau, there has been plenty of fuss in the media over the publication of the S. Pelegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Armed with such guides – and especially if cross‑referencing them – it is possible to rove across our European paradise confident of finding dining tables where the cuisine will be of excellent quality.

Perhaps echoing something of the same mood, there has been some talk recently of being able to rank standards development organizations (sdos). Over at the TalkStandards site, there is an ongoing debate about “whether standard setting organizations can be ranked or compared against each other, and if so, what criteria should be used and who could make such an assessment.” It is an intriguing idea – could such work enable us to adopt standards from certain top‑rated organizations with the same degree of confidence as we order from the menu at Pierre Gagnaire?

I think that would be difficult. Here’s why …

SDOs are observably inconsistent

All

It’s the people, stupid!

A

Who sits in judgement

Of course

The curious case of uoml

UOML