prISM service management professional certification great in theory flawed in execution

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-10-28 23:56
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The recently announced prISM "professional recognition for it Service Management" is great in theory but I fear it is flawed in execution.

I'm all for professional certification but why is prISM being run by itSMFUSA and ICSM - which one? who owns it? not itSMFI?

"This program is the first phase of an initiative by itSMF International to promote a professional recognition and development scheme worldwide. We anticipate that other itSMF Chapters will wish to align their professional credentialing interests with itSMF USA"

Global power grab by the Yanks or failure of itSMFI governance or just intractible refusal by the Poms to be run by Yanks and vice versa?

"This program represents a consistent, global understanding of what it means to be an ITSM practitioner, and how our members can meet their career and personal growth aspirations – no matter where they are today ... Once established, itSMF USA will maintain a Registry". If it is not a power grab, why not hand that to itSMFI now to run?

Rob Strouds says "I look forward to priSM being adopted by itSMF International" and David Cannon says "The priSM program will start this in the US and create a blueprint that will be used by itSMF International, working with other National chapters to expand the program". What I want to know is what was to stop itSMFI running it from day 1 and piloting in the USA?

All the URLs are itSMFUSA. If they understood anything about SEO this thing would at least have its own URL. And the branding is all itSMFUSA too. Are we seriously to believe that all that will change later. I doubt it. It will look as silly as the current attempts by BCS to rebrand themselves as a global organisation with global IT programs. Or itSMFUK trying to talk as if they are itSMFI when they stitch up ISO20000 deals.

I don't think itSMF know what governance is. Hurry up ISACA and offer a global Certified Information Systems Service Manager!

[See update below on global structure]

Published in The Skeptical Informer, October 2009, Volume 3, No. 8


Published in The Skeptical Informer, April 2011, Volume 5, No. 2


Comments

Submitted by Matthew Burrows (not verified) on Thu, 2011-02-24 11:11.

priSM

I know that the original blog was written a long time ago, but I found it useful to re-read it and see whether the fears and concerns originally raised have now been addressed - and I think they have.
The priSM program is now owned by itSMF International, and they have put in place a truly international governance structure. This consists of a Global priSM Institute, which has a board consisting of people from around the globe, supported by Regional priSM Institutes. The EMEA Regional Institute is now operational and has several itSMF Chapters participating, the Regional Institute for the Americas is also fully operational and an Institute for the AsiaPacRim region is due to go live later in 2011 - we already have significant involvement from chapters in the region.
itSMF International have now been directing the priSM program for over a year. While the USA pilot was getting going in early 2010, an international design team were working in parallel to evolve the scheme in to something which can work well internationally.
There is now a dedicated URL for the priSM Institute - www.theprisminstitute.org
The branding is now internationalised - so that change has happened.
Things have definitely moved on since your original blog, and I hope you'll find that we've address the concerns and fears that you had. Obviously, as Service Management professionals, we're always looking for continual improvement opportunities, so please let us know if you have more observations and suggestions. I'm involved in the Global Advisory Committee for priSM, so have an interest in driving continual improvement and addressing any issues.

Submitted by buraddo on Thu, 2009-10-29 18:07.

First past the post I say

Governance and control is the enemy of original thought.. This is one area some new ideas could be useful. If the Yanks (no offensem meant because my son is one) have a reasonably size community to adopt the idea and they think they have something uniquely interesting.. Full steam ahead.. Who needs uniformity and conformance.. Maybe a bigger issue if it was UK and France or some EU nation because of scheme portability, but US is a fairly self-contained market for the most part.

I suspect however there is no original thought here.. Classic centrally reviewed, point based system used by everyone else's dog.. Wake up and smell the social network technology, apprenticeships, mentoring, a verifiable genealogy of success.. This is one area social networks might actually do something useful.

Brad Vaughan

Submitted by Quatroux on Thu, 2009-10-29 13:09.

I finally stopped watching

I finally stopped watching their website for updates. From where they stand now, I can't see them gaining even the acceptance seen for TOGAF. Perhpas they were shooting for a BABOK-style certification that has about 0% adoption in the industry. At least TOGAF got a lot of vendors on-board and their certified staff will want to hire other certified staff as they change companies and merge with the rest of the industry.

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