Choose Your Own Certification Adventure

Follow these steps to design and launch a top quality IT certification program

- Peter Manijak

If you are looking to create a global, world-class IT certification program, or if you’d just like to know what goes into such an endeavor, then please consider this article a roadmap for your journey from great idea to declaring continuous success! Some readers may also be faced with taking an existing program to the next level, and these same steps can be used to achieve that as well. We’ll also cover some specifics for folks who are merely adding to or enhancing, rather than starting from scratch.

When corporate leaders or the members of an industry organization board decide it is time to create a certification program, there needs to be some education involved, both for the person who has been tapped to lead the effort, and for the leaders who have come up with initiative.

In order to educate leaders, some upfront questions need to be asked of these stakeholders, since the starting point and the number one action item on your to-do list is to have an agreed set of goals.

Setting goals for your program

The first thing to ask is what are the goals of the program? It sounds like a simple question, doesn’t it? Answers that let you move ahead with the process — the aims of a stable and flourishing program that you must guide your supervisors toward — are as follows:

Validate skills and knowledge.

Raise the visibility of the company or industry body.

Raise the technical competencies of customers, partners, employees, or membership.

Create lifelong loyalty among a new corps of advocates for your company, organization or program.

Be recognized as the industry leader in certification.

Reduce demand into your customer services organization.

Create a greater talent pool of expertise.