Certification Scheme Update, ITAM Forum
Jennifer Carr No Comments

Get involved. Join the Committee of Experts. Join your peers to help formulate what the certification scheme will look like and how conformity will be measured. 

There were two driving forces behind the formation of the ITAM Forum. The first was to elevate the position of ITAM by sharing knowledge and best practices that focus on business value and aid to grow the profession. The second was to create – and be a caretaker of – the first, globally-recognised, ISO 19770 standard certification program so organisations can demonstrate the quality of their ITAM practices.

If you’ve seen our recent updates, you’ll know about our achievements to date and the significant progress we’ve made since the Forum launched in April 2020. And, if you saw our recent announcement from the 4 June, you’ll know about the specific advancement we’re making with creating a certification program. 

ISO 19770 has been in existence for more than a decade and is a very useful resource for many ITAM professionals in building out their ITAM practice; however, it’s not been possible to measure conformity against the standard in a global, consistent and uniform way. The standards body ISO does not build certification schemes for standards, industries do. So, to progress as an industry, we need to develop one ourselves, which is what we, as a global community, are exactly doing. 

The business case supporting the need for organisations to be certified is growing and the want for this within the global community of ITAM professionals is also increasing. It will help to raise the profile of ITAM with key stakeholders (inside and outside of IT and all the way up to the C-suite), benchmark processes, drive ITAM maturity and hopefully, turn ITAM into the de facto business practice it deserves to be. The drive to raise ITAM’s profile and the drive to create a certification program truly work hand in hand, supporting each other. 

When the ITAM Forum launched, so did its Certification workstream comprised of volunteer members working together towards this goal  to create a credible, community-driven scheme with input from as many practitioners as possible, validated at a Trade Body, Scheme and National Country Level. Dennis Montanje leads this workstream. 

Said Dennis, “There are many key business disciplines that require certification against an ISO standard, such as information security. ITAM is fundamental to any security initiative so why wouldn’t you require the same conformity to a standard for ITAM? We’re thrilled to be bringing forward the world’s first ISO 19770 standard certification program. This truly is a first of its kind for our profession. It will significantly raise up the ITAM community and demonstrate in a meaningful way the contributions ITAM professionals make  and the value-add ITAM professionals deliver to their organisations.”

The ITAM Forum has engaged with NEN, the royal Netherlands Standardization Institute, to support the process to get the scheme. An independent, non-profit foundation, NEN manages more than 31,000 standards, including international, European and National standards accepted in The Netherlands. 

As part of our 4th June update, we also announced the creation of a Committee of Experts volunteers who want to play an important role in formulating what the scheme will look like and how conformity will be measured. We’re aiming for global representation from the ITAM community with volunteers coming from all corner of the globe who are end-users, tool providers and those who provide consultancy services.

Our roadmap aims to officially launch the certification program in March 2022. 

It’s an exciting time for ITAM and an exciting time to be in ITAM!