IPMA Competence Baseline

Also known as: ICB

framework · project management · regulatory-standard

International Project Management Association's competence-based framework for individual project, programme, and portfolio managers.

The IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB) is the framework of the International Project Management Association articulating the competences expected of project, programme, and portfolio managers. Unlike PMBOK and PRINCE2, which are process and methodology frameworks, ICB is competence-based: it specifies what individuals should be able to do across perspective, people, and practice domains, and underlies a four-level certification scheme (IPMA Level A through D) where assessment includes role-relevant evidence rather than examination alone. The first ICB was published in 1999 (consolidating earlier national IPMA-member-association competence guidance from the 1990s); ICB 4.0 (2015) is the current edition. IPMA is a federation of approximately 70 national member associations, and certification is administered by national bodies under IPMA accreditation, producing both consistency and national-level variation.

Originators

International Project Management Association (institutional originator, founded 1965 as INTERNET, renamed 1995); national member-association competence guidance preceded the unified ICB high

Year / Decade

1999 (ICB 1.0); 2015 (ICB 4.0 current) high

Primary sources

IPMA (2015). Individual Competence Baseline (ICB 4.0), IPMA (1999). ICB IPMA Competence Baseline (first edition), Crawford, L. (2005). 'Senior Management Perceptions of Project Management Competence', International Journal of Project Management high

Core components

Three competence domains: People (10 competences including self-reflection, leadership, teamwork, conflict and crisis), Practice (14 competences including project design, requirements and objectives, scope, time, organisation and information, quality), Perspective (5 competences including strategy, governance, compliance, power and interest, culture and values)
Four certification levels (A: Certified Projects Director
B: Certified Senior Project Manager
C: Certified Project Manager
D: Certified Project Management Associate)
Multi-method assessment (examination, portfolio of evidence, interview)
National Member Association administration with IPMA accreditation

Primary use case

Certification framework for individual project, programme, and portfolio managers in IPMA member countries; particularly strong in Continental Europe, Russia, and parts of Asia and Latin America; competence development and assessment input for organizational career frameworks; academic reference in European project-management curricula; alternative or complement to PMP and PRINCE2 certifications.

Common criticisms

IPMA's federated structure produces national-level variation in certification rigor and content that empirical research (notably Crawford 2005 on global project-management certification, and ongoing IPMA-internal benchmarking) has documented
the assessment methodology including portfolio of evidence is more expensive and less scalable than PMI's examination-based PMP, leading to lower adoption volumes globally
the competence-based framework's predictive validity for project performance has been questioned in industrial-organizational psychology literature on competence assessment more generally (e.g., critiques of competence frameworks by Le Deist and Winterton 2005)
the ICB's perspective domain (strategy, governance, compliance, power and interest, culture) addresses content PMBOK has been criticized for underweighting, but operational application remains inconsistent
interaction with PMI's competence guidance (the PMI Talent Triangle) produces certification-market confusion
commercial training markets around ICB are smaller than around PMP, limiting practitioner ecosystem
ICB 4.0's structural changes from earlier editions produced transition difficulty for candidates and trainers.

Lineage

Siblings: PMBOK Guide, PRINCE2, ISO 21500, ISO 21502