The international accounting standard setting process isn’t working. We know that because the combined might of the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board says so. The way that they describe the process seems so arcane, muddled and confused it is a wonder any standards emerge.

Sir David Tweedie and Robert Herz, the chairmen of the IASB and FASB respectively, have not admitted the shortcomings of the present system for completely altruistic reasons. Rather they want to change the system to make it more coherent, logical and, above all, quicker. At the moment, the standard setting process takes three years from initial idea to completion. The solution is a fast track to meet a demanding timetable.

In another world, the standard process may be allowed to meander at the current pace, but Tweedie and Herz can hear the sound of time’s winged chariot drawing near. A small IASB/FASB group was tasked with providing a progress report and developing a work plan for the completion of the February 2007 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to converge IFRSs and US GAAP. The progress report updates the MoU to 2011 identifying the priority of financial reporting improvements, the time frames for completing them and the major milestones along the way.

The bottom line is that between now and 2011 a substantial amount of work needs to be finished by standard setters. You could argue that three years is a long time, but in the current standard setting process it is a blink of an eye. Here’s the IASB/FASB current timescale for a standard: issuing a due process document usually takes 12 months (three to prepare and ballot, six for exposure and three more to read and summarise comments). Then major projects require two due process documents (a discussion paper and exposure draft), so repeat process describe above and that leaves 12 months for board deliberations. No deliberation has yet taken less than a year.

For example, it took 18 months to take business combinations from exposure draft to final and then the two boards didn’t converge on all major points.

The major projects in progress – liabilities, equity, revenue recognition and financial statement presentation– have been under discussion by the boards in one form or another for at least five years. It is clear that the issues are many and controversial and completing them by 2011 represents a significant challenge.

While the standard setters say that the present project administration could be improved, it won’t solve the crux of the issue. The fundamental reason why projects take as long as they do is that the two boards – and members within each board – sometimes don’t agree on what they are trying to fix and how to fix it.

These differences include diverse views over whether a project is worthwhile, or whether the issues within a project are even worthwhile resolving. Then there is the problem of project creep.

For example, work on financial statement presentation was expanded to include revisions to segment disclosure because existing segment disclosures were deemed deficient. Usually, divergent views exist about the approach to be taken. So, for instance, some standard setters want to develop a conceptual model as the basis for the revised standard, while others see the problem as lack of guidance. The final source of disagreement between standard setters is known as cross cutting – differences in views about whether and how similar issues in active projects should be resolved consistently. If internal consistency is the goal, then you create a standards log jam. No project can move any faster than any other work to which it is related.

An example of this is the IASB business combination standard, which couldn’t be issued until it had completed fair value measurements. All this leads to a large amount of time at board meetings debating issues that have been debated before.

The way forward, according to the IASB group which analysed the standard setting process and likely achievements by 2011, is simple. The solution is to agree project objectives at the start.

This means that the boards must have a good idea of the outcome of the project before they embark on the work. If they know where they are going, they are much more likely to get there.

The downside is that there are no intellectual debates along the way. Instead, standard setters work on finding the best workable solution to what had already been agreed.

The work by IASB/FASB has already been done on articulating and identifying projects objectives and the improvements that can be accomplished by mid-2011; the new fast-track solution is waiting for the go-ahead from the boards – a decision is expected in June. The danger of this new fast-track stance of the IASB/FASB convergence programme is that it may come under fire for failing to consult properly and may lose support if it produces unpopular or allegedly unworkable standards. Tweedie and Herz know those risks and are prepared to take them. In the international accounting standard setting world it seems there is no longer any time for nice guys.