This guide is for organizations that want to achieve best practice in Software Asset Management in natural evolutionary stages, make progress and demonstrate results more easily; and who are willing to trial a new approach being considered for addition to the 19770-series of international standards. Anticipated benefits include easier SAM process improvement; realizing savings and other benefits more quickly; and the ability to demonstrate the achievement of each stage.

There's no better way of meeting real-world SAM needs than asking users who have experience of reviewing implementation, believes Dave Phillips of the ISO/IEC working group responsible for software asset management standards.
 

This article provides an overview of how the ISO/IEC standards-making process works, in particular for Software Asset Management ('SAM') standards, for the benefit of individuals who may wish to become more involved.  If you are a passionate professional with a strong sense of social responsibility, then you can find fulfillment in the world of standards.  Furthermore, you have much to gain in the process.  There is a productive exchange between people with varied skills, knowledge and experience, and valuable learning is on offer for all involved.

The subject of standards can arouse passions in a few people, but for others it is mind‐numbingly boring. Nonetheless, our lives are dominated by standards – even currencies are really standards, alternatives to the gold standard. If we did not have such standards, the business world as we know it would not exist, and our social and personal worlds would also be turned upside down.