Previously I wrote an article about IDPro, the association for Identity and Access Management Professionals. This organization was founded a few years ago to support the workers in the field with knowledge about developments and does so by organizing regional meetings, contributing to international conferences and by developing the Body of Knowledge, the BoK. As a member of the committee that develops the BoK, I am helping to determine the content, but I am also contributing as an author and reviewer. For example, just before the summer holidays, my first article, “Introduction to Access Control” was published in Issue 2. Issue 3 will be published in the second half of October.
Now such a Body of Knowledge is nice, but if you look at it with an oblique eye, it is more than a series of articles. The articles are reviewed by a large number of people, first in a collaborative environment, then by a few committee members, then by the editor-in-chief (Heather Flanagan) and finally the board of IDPro needs to approve. The articles are more than just individual pieces of work. And that automatically leads to the question whether that knowledge cannot be used further. The answer to that question is that the broader application and sharing of knowledge is indeed a relevant topic. IDPro is considering certification for IAM professionals. A working group has already started developing some sort of certification program. And the knowledge generated and collected in the BoK has been taken as the starting point.
We, the professionals, know better than anyone that the field is very broad. I myself am more the type of business consultant, architect, Access Strategist if you want. Do not ask me to install Sailpoint or to model a Forgerock connector or a Saviynt workflow. And even though I know about OIDC, I couldn’t put it together. Not every identity professional is the same. That aspect is the starting point for the certification program. Initial certification will likely target a Foundation level, based on knowledge from the “Introduction to…” series of articles.
So it took a number of years, but it now really looks like we can also earn our own badges / medals.
By André Koot
IDnext Advisory Board Member
