Microsoft Supports Plan for International Standard for IT Professionals
This news release went worldwide through the UNESCO Consultative body, the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP). IFIP through all it's affiliations represents some 93 countries and nearly 1 million IT leaders and influencers. CIPS is the official representative in Canada. This represents a historical inflection point in that for the first time in history there is both global and industry support for Professional Practice and professional certification that we take for granted for other professions. Canada through CIPS was able to take a leadership role in this program including invitation to the IFIP Task Force in November 2006 to take Professional Practice worldwide and receiving the positions of Vice-Chair and CFO. The task force is kept agile and focused leveraging the experienced professionalism (certification, body of knowledge, code of ethics, accreditation) long-standing models in Canada through CIPS, and in the UK, and Australia. There was a hint given at the national EnergizeIT Conference in June about professionalism. Final ratification for the worldwide IT certification program took place at the IFIP World General Assembly in August with global announcement of Microsoft's support in September.
Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki,
FCIPS,
I.S.P.,
MVP The key messages ...
The overall goals of IFIP and the International Professional Practice Program or I3P:
- Improve the ability of business to exploit IT effectively and consistently.
- Develop a global IT profession which is respected and valued.
- Ensure the voice of the IT practitioner is clearly and powerfully expressed on the international stage.
- To enable internationally recognized professional qualifications based on a common body of knowledge.
- To Power a standard means of measurement for professional skills and competencies.
- And to ensuring a defined process for the independent assurance of quality of those professional skills and competencies.
International Federation Professional Practice Program (IFIP I3P) Key Takeaways:
Canada is clearly a world leader and this is now acknowledged by the leadership and contributions of Canada to the IFIP Task Force.
I3P is the International IT Professional Practice Program, which is run by IFIP, a UNESCO organization.
I3P is intended to bring the same level of professionalism to IT as we take for granted with doctors, accountants, engineers etc.
Since IT is now ubiquitous, it's important to ensure a consistently high quality of work and to improve the recognition, rewards and career progression of those professionals, including architects, developers, support staff and many more involved in it.
Read the full news release.