The following are the primary governance groups of ISO:
The ISO General Assembly is the annual meeting of all ISO members. Its agenda typically includes actions relating to development of ISO policies impacting the members, approval of ISO’s multi-year strategic plan, and ISO’s finances.
The ISO Council is responsible for the development of ISO’s multi-year strategic plan, the development of the ISO annual budget, ISO’s relations with other external organizations, and other political/strategic decisions and the general operations of ISO. The ISO Council consists of the principal officers of ISO and twenty elected member bodies, including ANSI for the U.S. ANSI is one of six permanent members to the ISO Council.
The ISO Council has three policy development committees reporting to it:
The ISO TMB is responsible for the organization, coordination, strategic planning, rules of procedure for the technical work of ISO. The ISO TMB consists of the ISO Vice President for Technical Management and fifteen elected member bodies, including ANSI for the United States. ANSI is one of six permanent members of the ISO TMB.
ISO standards are developed by groups of subject-area experts, working within these structures, when a need for standards in that area is identified. Experts may come from industry, government, testing laboratories, consumer associations, environmental groups, academia, and other stakeholder groups, and they participate as national delegates, chosen by the ISO national member body for each country involved. These delegations are required to represent not just the views of the organizations that employ the experts, but the views of other national stakeholders as well. According to ISO rules, the ISO member is expected to take account of the views of the range of parties interested in the standard under development and to present a consolidated, national consensus position to the technical committee.
