Since the beginning of the 90ies the question "What is good Project Management?" has been asked more and more frequently- probably also according to the background of Quality Audits of the type ISO 9000 "Quality Management Systems".

Actually, the answer should not be that difficult, as there are generally recognised inter-national and national PM Standards since many years.

These are in the first place

• The German DIN 69900 Project Economy,
• The international ISO 10006 Guidelines for quality management in projects,
• The ICB, Competence Baseline of the IPMA (International Project Management Association), whose national member in Germany is the GPM,
• The PM KANON and finally
• The extensive standard literature in Project Management, including the Project Management Fachmann (RKW/GPM) above all. Its last edition has been pub-lished in 2003.

As good Project Management should be at least in accordance with the essential stan-dards, a comprehensive "measure" had to be searched, which shows how considerably a Project Management fulfils the standards and which deficits, which we call improve-ment potentials since ISO 9000, are present.

The GPM, as an association of Project Management specialists, accepted the chal-lenge. The answer was PM DELTA, because on the search for the comprehensive measure the product family PM DELTA has been developed.

As the greek letter "delta" is the symbol for a difference in technology and and siences, the PM DELTA-Products show the difference, which is recognisable between standard requirements and practical project work in Project Management.

Actually, the objective of the PM DELTA-Products is in each case the evaluation (and if necessary the comparison) of Project Management Systems- whether they are only used for a certain single project or for several projects is of no importance. Project Man-agement System, in this case, does not only mean a software product which supports the project work, but an "organisational defined whole, which is able to prepare and complete the project by the cooperation of its elements." (DIN 69905) So it concerns the entire organisation behind the project, no matter how simple it may be arranged. Neither the project team nor the project success will be evaluated. (as for instance with the PM Award).

The first result was the product PM DELTA
Project Management -Assessment

A Project Management (System) is systematically examined by two assessors with the help of a catalogue of open questions. The strengths and improvement poten-tials of the PM are documented and common beginnings for sensible improve-ments are developed.

The second result was the product PM DELTA compact,
an IT-program for diagnosis and benchmarking of project management.

Project managers, PM-Offices, consultants, companies, organisations or other PM-users determine the DELTA of their project management themselves sup-ported by the computer- they then receive a graphic and a text diagnosis.
Moreover, PM DELTA compact can also administer an internal benchmarking in an organisation and support the continuous improvement process (CIP) for the PM effectively.
The external benchmarking compares the own results to those of other users.
A link to the program Mind-Manager, and therefore also to MS PROJECT is in-tended and will shortly be available.

The third result was PM DELTA transpro,
an IT-program to support the process of the creation and evaluation of the transfere pro-jects (which means the written works to proof the ability to convert PM-knowledge into the project practice) concerning the training as Project Management-Fachmann.

This IT-program is divided into three versions, which have different emphasises each:
It supports

• the candidate with the development and the self evaluation of his work
• the trainer with the coaching of the candidates
• the examining assessors with the evaluation and acknowledgement
• the office with the issuing of the document.

The aforementioned PM- Standards are the background of all products; Quota-tions and texts can be called up in the IT-programs problem-oriented by links.

As a fourth result the GPM Benchmark Portal has been developed.

The Benchmark Portal should offer a platform for all persons and organisations active in Project Management where they can compare their own project man-agement to the profiles of other PM-users. So various distinction criteria like busi-ness- line, type of project, costs, total costs, duration and topicality for the defini-tion of the comparison selection are offered.

Thus, the DELTA-user can use the whole range of offers, starting from the evalu-ation of single projects by the internal benchmarking up to the view above the rim to external PM-Systems and the comprehensive base for improvements in the own PM- system.

In addition, any interested person who is not a PM DELTA-user can also get sug-gestions from the benchmark offer.

Combined with the new benchmark-offer this website should promote the use of all PM DELTA products, the customer support and the further development topically and effectively, so that a fast growing user circle can achieve even more success with project management.