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The Certified Information Professional certification is back!

AIIM have announced that the CIP certification will not be going away.

Certified Information Professional – Before the Announcement

When AIIM originally (and quietly) announced the end of the AIIM Certified Information Professional (CIP) on the 11th of December 2015, there was a strong reaction.

Possibly stronger than AIIM had expected.

Here’s a small list of some of the feedback that was given:

• George Parapadakis: The rise and fall of CIP – by AIIM
• Laurence Hart (ex AIIM CIO): The CIP: A Lost Opportunity
• My previous post: The end of CIP
• Chris Walker: CIP No More – Meh
• Dan Antion (AIIM Board Member): Ding Dong the CIP
• AIIM LinkedIn group discussion: An update on the Certified Information Professional program
• Twitter: https://storify.com/markjowen/aiim-cip-tweets

(If I have missed any, let me know.)

If you read all those, you’ll see that most people were upset that the CIP was “deactivated”.

They feel cheated, and you can see other Info Management organisations circling. There’s even discussion about setting up an alternative certification.

At the same time, there was a small number that said “didn’t really need it”, and a couple of inputs from AIIM Board members that said (more, or less) “stop crying”.

Explanation

Noticing the unrest, early on, among the CIP natives, AIIM CEO John Mancini wrote a “justification post” on the 14th of December 2015. (This was alluded to in Dan Antion’s post).

John gives some reasonable reasons for stopping the certification:

• There was no alignment between the CIP abd what was being taught in their courses.
• There was more interest in knowledge gained from a course rather than being part of a qualified group.
• It was hard to get adoption by the industry
• Maintaining the CIP was costing more than it was earning.
• AIIM made a decision to give more of its focus to their Master program.

You can read more here.

Turn Around

4 days later (18 December 2016), John publishes a well-worded announcement in which he states that they will be continuing the CIP, and improving it.

it’s easy to forget that passion is the underlying force that keeps any association alive

– John Mancini

In the announcement, John states:

1. We will continue the CIP and begin work on CIP 2.0.
2. For CIP 2.0, we will redefine its body of knowledge as the full body of knowledge represented across all of AIIM’s training courses.
3. We will launch CIP 2.0 at AIIM16.

This really excites me … for two reasons.

1. It means that AIIM listened to its members.
2. They are not only reinstating it, but aligning it to the training material, and courses, that they produce.

The alignment of the CIP and the training material is absolutely brilliant and something that really needs to be done.

The IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) offer the CBAP certification. This certification is based on an understanding of the BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge). All training materials exist to reinforce the/focus on the BABOK. That is, the BABOK came first, and then the certification after it.

This is where there was a lack of alignment with the CIP. The training material, and the certification did not, actually, reinforce each other directly.

Post Announcement

• Dan Antion (AIIM Board Member): Remain Calm You’re Still a CIP
• Kevin Parker: The Certified Information Professional (CIP) Lives Again!
• Project Consultant: AIIM ECM Master Kurs komplett überarbeitet
• Twitter: https://storify.com/markjowen/aiim-cip-post-anouncment-tweets

Happy Ending?

I’m really keen to see how this will go. It’s been made clear that there are a lot of supporters of both CIP, and AIIM in the community. And I’m really glad that AIIM is going to be overhauling the CIP certification.

I feel, however, like I’ve been watching a TV series, where you’ve seen watching the main protagonist fighting challenges. Will he survive? Can he do it? The hero has many long-term supporters that have come to assist him, and yet, at the same time, a few of these have shown their true colors, and are secretly working against him.

We, the viewers know it. The main hero, however, doesn’t…

Let’s wait for the next season….

Recommended Reading
(Important Disclosure)

The end of CIP
AIIM has announced the end of the CIP certification.A lot of people weren’t happy with this. In this post, I discuss some of the reasons that the bell was being tolled fo the CIP.

Since writing this post, AIIM has responded to this, and many other comments, that CIP holders (and others) made. AIIM announced that they were not abandoning the CIP certification, but were actually going to upgrade it. (You can read more here)

Premier Credential

It’s been 4 years since I attained AIIM’s Certified Information Professional (CIP) certification. At the time it seemed like a good idea.

Below is an extract from AIIM’s “CIP Examination Objectives”

The certification is dedicated too enhancing and promoting the profession of information management by providing the premier credential in the industry.

Note the word “premier“.

Exciting News

Last week, AIIM announced an exciting development. They described how they were “consolidating” their CIP and their Master designation.. In other words, the premier credential is going to be worthless.

The CIP was something that you qualified for, after sitting a rather rigorous exam that covered a vast range of areas within Information Management.

And then, because things are continuously changing, there was the requirement to re- qualify every X years, by accumulating X continual training units.

.The Master designation that they refer to is something that one can get after doing a course (in either Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Business Process Management (BPM), or Electronic Records Management (ERM)) , pass an exam, write a case study. and that’s it. No further “keeping up-to-date”

… there is a difference in a training institute’s “certificates” and an industry “certification.”

Kevin Parker (Information Management Consultant & AIIM Trainer)

I’ve been a big supporter of AIIM. I was even an “ambassador”. I’ve written several blog posts about them, and was one of their “expert bloggers”.

I saw value in the CIP. It created a “standard” (I wrote about this in an earlier post), so I was disappointed to see that it was, essentially, being killed off.

I don’t feel that the “Master” designation is quite the same as the CIP, but then, it appears that the CIP certification was not quite as popular as AIIM had anticipated. Apparently over the 4 years there were only 1000 Certified Information Professionals.

Why didn’t it work?

Lack of Interest

I can only really speak from my own perspective here. Jesse Wilkins has tried to give some explanations to the angry mob of CIP holders that gathered at his doorstep (and by “doorstep” I mean “on Twitter”), and it seems to boil down to “a lack of interest”.

it seems to boil down to “a lack of interest”

When the CIP appeared on the landscape I saw it as a great way of defining what I knew (with regards the field of Information Management), as well as creating a map of other areas that I needed to explore to become a well-rounded Information Professional. I found the idea of continual learning valuable. It was something that I did anyway, but now it was something that was being recognised.

I found the idea of continual learning valuable. It was something that I did anyway, but now it was something that was being recognised.

The other professional institutions (PMI, IIBA) have done it. Their certifications are internationally recognised (and career defining), but even those started out with just a handful of certification holders.

Value

So now that the CIP is gone. I ask “was it really necessary”. The fact that there wasn’t a great uptake shows that, maybe, it wasn’t. Information Professionals have carried on being Information Professionals, and companies have carried on hiring them based on their experience and knowledge.

Having CIP certification wasn’t really a deal-breaker. Back in 2012, before I embraced the CIP, I asked whether it would be JAC (Just Another Certification). The reason that I decided that it wasn’t was because of the reasons I described above.

A lack of a framework

Look at the PMI (Project Management Institute) certification, or the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) certification. They are standards for professionals working in those fields. And having the certification does make a difference.

And these certifications are based on a BOK (Body of knowledge) that provides a framework for the way these professional perform. That’s what helped the certification to be seen as something professional. And that was something that the CIP lacked.

So what now?

That’s the question that I’m trying to answer. Some have even suggested that AIIM has no more value. I’m curious what you think? Does AIIM really make a difference?

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