Rules and regulations are essential to any well managed organization. They serve to establish uniform practices and common techniques which may be used as guidelines for the measurement of performance. Designing systems, writing programs and setting up operations in a data processing center require certain individual skills and personal knowledge of a given situation. By organizing often-used methods into a written manual, and by revising and refining these methods, effective standards can be developed. In effect, standards then form a discipline which supports uniformity in practice and guidelines for evaluation of performance.

To appreciate the importance of standards in data processing and the purpose they serve, one only has to attempt to change a program written by someone else or make changes to a system designed by someone else. Lack of standard documentation, unorthodox system design and tricky programming can quickly render a fine piece of work useless in the absence of the original author. Properly observed standards can assist in preventing such a disaster.