The Lean IT Association – a consortium of global leaders in the IT Training and Certification Industry – today announced its formation and revealed its newly developed Lean IT Certification Scheme. The Certification Scheme sets out an important reference for professionals in several degrees of knowledge and competence.
The Lean IT Association (LITA) is led by a Board comprised of Senior Directors of its founding members, including Nick Houlton (APMG), Bernd Taselaar (EXIN), Byron Nicolaides (PEOPLECERT), David Ratcliffe (Pink Elephant), Maurice Boon (Quint) and Sukhbir Jasuja (ITpreneurs). According the Association’s Manifesto, the Consortium was founded to set a global standard for Lean IT education and certification.
Lean is about making the organization more efficient and to effectively respond to external demand. Incremental and radical change methods such as Agile Scrum can be used to transition the organization to Lean principles in production and management. IT Service Management can get a huge benefit out of Lean IT, by removing waste and optimizing the value of the IT services. Nick Houlton, Chief Operating Officer at APMG states: “Lean principles have been used in a variety of industries for some years now. The IT industry has embraced these principles using the term “Lean IT”, but while there have been some fragmented initiatives for education & certification in Lean IT, there is no universally accepted program or thought leadership. The Lean IT Association is aiming to remedy that”.
The Lean IT Certification Scheme consists of 4 distinct certifications for various levels. Starting at an entry level with Lean IT Foundation and moving into Lean IT Kaizen Lead, climbing further up the ladder to Lean IT Leader or Coach. Each level introduces more knowledge and skills, eventually leading up to competences that enable a professional to support corporate introduction or further development of Lean IT initiatives.
Training providers can apply for accreditation by one of the Exam Institutes liaised to LITA, through the Lean IT Association website. The quality of their training program, materials and trainers will be assessed against and accredited according to LITA standards.
About the Lean IT Association
Lean IT Association (LITA) is a non-profit organization founded by three Accredited Training Organizations (ATOs) – ITpreneurs, Pink Elephant, Quint and three Examination Institutes (EIs) – APMG, EXIN, PEOPLECERT International Ltd.
To realize its broader purpose LITA aims to provide:
●an industry-standard set of Lean IT reference materials and other resources for practitioner organizations to use;
●a clear understanding of the value and positioning of Lean IT relative to other bodies of knowledge, frameworks and standards;
●a certification scheme aimed at practitioner organizations looking to adopt Lean IT principles in the IT Service development and operations department as well as professionals that want to be certified in Lean IT on various levels.