# Harmonised Structure Harmonised Structure is the commitment from [[ISO]] that standards can work together. Any organisation that uses a management standard and then decides to use another will find that a lot of the clauses are identical - management standards are structured the same way, regardless of the area or industry they apply to. Here's a diagram that visualises the harmonised structure in effect, where red boxes are the ever-present clauses, and blue is what tends to change from standard to standard (and in this case changes for use in ISO/IEC 27001:2022). ![[Harmonised Structure.png]] ## Annex SL Annex SL sits inside the directives of the joint publications by ISO/IEC and prescribes the writing style and structure for Management Systems Standards (MSS). This is the actual documentation that produces the harmonised structure mentioned above, as well as sets out direction of standard terms of reference. MSS need to follow the following structure: 1. Scope 2. Normative references 3. Terms and definitions 4. Context of the organization 5. Leadership 6. Planning 7. Support 8. Operation 9. Performance evaluation 10. Improvement Annex SL also houses interesting directions on writing style, which are worth dipping into for insight on the thoughts and efforts that go into production of these systems of systems. It includes definitions of terms which we may be familiar with: · **policy** intentions and direction of an _organization_ (3.1) as formally expressed by its _top management_ *(The italicised words are also common terms of reference, so the terms of reference require reference to itself which is quite interesting)*. There are also insights as to the reasoning of preferred terms and admitted terms that may be hanging over from previous documentation. Here's an example where **interested party** is defined with an admitted term of stakeholder: ·**interested party** (preferred term) ·stakeholder (admitted term) person or _organization_ (3.1) that can affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision or activity The guidance then goes on to discuss that if at all possible, don't use stakeholder, and always use interested party. Nevertheless, stakeholder is acceptable and not a 'deviation', but may cause translation issues - and under no circumstances can be used synonymously with the preferred term. It's also not acceptable for the terms to be used to represent different concepts within the same MSS.