The IFIP International Professional Practice Partnership - Transforming and Informing IT Professional Practice

A global programme led by IFIP (The International Federation for Information Processing) to promote professionalism in IT, define international standards and create a global infrastructure that will encourage and support the development of both practitioners and employer organisations and give recognition to those who meet and maintain the required standards for knowledge, experience, competence and integrity. 1.The Vision Our vision is the creation of an international IT profession, equivalent in prestige and structure to other established professions such as law, accountancy and medicine, that is: Focused on improving the ability of business and other organisations to exploit the potential of information technology effectively and consistently. Respected by its stakeholders – including employees, employers, customers, governments and key international bodies. A source of real pride and aspiration for IT practitioners. 2. The Background The IT profession is at a critical point in its development. IT is now quite clearly an activity which is vital to the world economy and to the prosperity and quality of life of ordinary people across the world. At the same time it is marked by an almost complete absence of well established national or international standards to assure the essential requirements of a truly professional practitioner. While a confusing array of examination-based qualifications provide an indication of relevant knowledge, it is generally impossible to validate subjective judgements about the experience, competence or ethical standards of individuals – even where those judgements relate to business-critical or even safety-critical positions. In a global industry in which practitioners are numbered in millions, this is very clearly unacceptable. This lack of established national and international standards is a serious problem in a world in which everyone is now acutely aware of the need for IT professionalism but it also provides a valuable opportunity. The IT profession stands on a cusp – sufficiently mature to recognise the importance of professionalism but not so far down the track that every nation has developed its own standards that would now require difficult and time consuming retrofitting to form an international standard. It is this unique and possibly short lived, opportunity that IFIP is determined to seize and exploit. 3. IP3 Delivering the Vision The IFIP International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3) is designed to deliver the vision set out above by the development of an overarching professional framework maintained and delivered through its network of over 90 national member societies.