The current plan calls for I3P to establish certification standards that can be used in auditing national IT certification schemes. Full IFIP members may apply for assessment against these certification standards, or they may use the process to review (audit) their national IT certification practices with a view to identifying possible improvements. Some provisions are being made for non-IFIP member associations to have their national IT certification practices reviewed (audited).

Those national IT certification schemes accepted by I3P will win the right of their certificants to use the "International Information Technology Professional" (or IITP) designation, ... provided that the national association pays and continues to pay an appropriate fee to I3P. The hope/expectation is that the IITP will become the internationally coveted IT professional designation. The Task Force projects that there will be some 250,000 recognized IITP holders within the first five years.

Clearly the British Computer Society is the prototypical national IT certifying association. The BCS played and continues to play the leading role in I3P. Its commitment to Professionalism in IT was a key inspiration behind I3P. The natural expectation is that it, and it alone in the UK, will be able to offer the IITP designation to its Chartered IT Professionals (CITP). But what of CIPS and its I.S.P. designation?

There are a number of possible outcomes:

1. The I.S.P. is accepted as qualifying our certificants for the IITP designation.
2. The I.S.P. is only provisionally accepted as qualifying our certificants for the IITP designation.
3. The I.S.P. is rejected as qualifying our certifications for the IITP designation.
4. The CCPE (a non-IFIP association) wins the right for its P.Eng.- SE to use the IITP designation.
5. The ICCP (a non-IFIP association) wins the right for its certificants to use the IITP designation.
6. The ITGI (a non-IFIP association) wins the right for its CobiT certificants to use the IITP designation.

Based on everything I can find, my best guess is that outcome two (2) is most likely. CIPS has always had great intentions for its I.S.P. The practice doesn't always support those intentions. I3P could tell CIPS to clean up its act or it would lose the right of its certificants to use the IITP designation.

If the IITP wins the kind of international acceptance projected by I3P, then other national and international associations will want their certificants to be able to use the IITP designation. An immediate, local example could the the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers seeking non-IFIP member association recognition for the Canadian P. Eng. Software Engineering designation. As the rules are currently written, there is no obvious reason why they would not be considered.

The last two outcomes in my list are "interesting" because both the ICCP (Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals) and the ITGI (IT Governance Institute) are already international, but both are headquartered in the U.S. The ICCP has long offered certification (which CIPS accepts as demonstrating effective mastery of our Body of Knowledge). The ITGI is about to offer CobiT certification, but has extensive experience in certifying IT auditors. In many ways, ICCP and ITGI can be compared to BCS - based in one nation, but offering certification internationally.