ISO 31000

ISO 31000 is a family of standards relating to risk management codified by the International Organization for Standardization. The purpose of ISO 31000:2009 is to provide principles and generic guidelines on risk management. ISO 31000 seeks to provide a universally recognised paradigm for practitioners and companies employing risk management processes to replace the myriad of existing standards, methodologies and paradigms that differed between industries, subject matters and regions.

Currently, the ISO 31000 family is expected to include:

ISO also designed its ISO 21500 Guidance on Project Management standard to align with ISO 31000:2009.

Introduction

ISO 31000 was published as a standard on the 13th of November 2009, and provides a standard on the implementation of risk management. A revised and harmonised ISO/IEC Guide 73 was published at the same time. The purpose of ISO 31000:2009 is to be applicable and adaptable for "any public, private or community enterprise, association, group or individual." Accordingly, the general scope of ISO 31000 - as a family of risk management standards - is not developed for a particular industry group, management system or subject matter field in mind, rather to provide best practice structure and guidance to all operations concerned with risk management.