ABSTRACT
Many standards exist for project and programme management. These include: national and international, generic and sector-specific, process-orientated and competence-based standards. Portfolio management is quite a new approach, which has gained more recognition since the early 2000s. Thus, there are only a few best practice standards available for portfolio management. Portfolio management is all about people. People manage portfolios and thus human competence is at the core of competence-orientated standards. All people involved in portfolios and their management can learn about the competence requirements by reading the competence standards. There is only one international competence standard for portfolio management available, which is the International Project Management Association (IPMA) Individual Competence Baseline (ICB). The IPMA is the world's oldest international project management association, founded in 1965 in Europe. The first version of the IPMA ICB was published in 1999. It was based on the approaches of four European project management associations.
