President's Message
Making Progress Against Our Strategic Plan
David A. Dye, Ph.D.
Last June at our annual conference in Chicago, I outlined five priorities to guide our strategic plan for the year. The priorities address issues of professional development, networking and relationships, timely communication and information exchange, sound and innovative assessment practices, and the value added of assessment professionals. In this issue, I would like to mention two activities that will go a long way toward achieving our priorities - (1) a recently approved IPMA initiative to develop an HR Certification Program for public sector professionals, and (2) a new and improved IPMAAC membership survey.
HR Certification Program for Public Sector Professionals
At the beginning of my term, my expectation was that progress against our year's priorities would occur in typical fashion -- through the hard work of the Board; with the help of our committees; and with the support of individual members who volunteer their time and energy over the course of the year. Little did I know that IPMAAC would be provided with an opportunity to make significant progress on all five priorities in a single initiative!
In the last issue of the Assessment Council News, I mentioned that I was serving on IPMA's HR Certification Committee. The charge of the committee is: To examine the advisability of establishing a public sector human resource management certification program and to make recommendations to the IPMA Executive Council. Because of the significance of this initiative for IPMAAC, I would like to use this issue's column to report on progress made and to make a call for your involvement.
On January 29-30, the committee met in Arlington, Virginia to discuss the issues involved in certification, and to make a recommendation on the feasibility of a certification program. The meeting was chaired by Charles Blockett, IPMA's immediate Past President, and was attended by 16 members.
Following a review and discussion of a white paper prepared by IPMA staff outlining recommended components of a certification program, the committee heard from several members on related programs. These programs included those developed and offered by the Canadian Public Personnel Management Association (CPPMA) and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
From the reports and the ensuring discussion, the committee recommended that a public sector HR certification program be developed and offered through IPMA. Further, if approved by the IPMA Executive Council, the committee recommended that the certification should consist of two parts: a behavioral component based on IPMA's HR Competency Model, and a T&E component to evaluate technical knowledge.
On March 13, IPMA's Executive Committee voted in favor of developing and implementing a certification program for public sector professionals.
The significance for IPMAAC is that we have been given the lead to develop a written examination, based on IPMA's HR Competency Training Model. The exam is to include questions on basic HR laws, and successful completion of the exam would be required for certification. Individuals will not be required to take the IPMA training program, but must demonstrate knowledge of HR competencies by passing the examination, which will be based on IPMA's model.
In response to this assignment, I agreed to appoint an IPMAAC task force to develop the written examination. Kris Smith, President-Elect and Mike Willihnganz, Chair, Training and Workshop Committee, have graciously agreed to co-chair the task force.
Certainly, there are many other issues that need to be addressed in developing and implementing the certification program. Other IPMA subcommittees have been established and staff initiatives were identified to develop and implement the program, including T & E Development, Application Development, Review Committee Composition Suggestions, Costing the Program, Development of a Marketing/PR Plan, Structure and Conduct Group Feedback Sessions, Outline Appeals Process, Legal Opinion. We expect that IPMAAC's exam development task force will have significant coordination with the committee in charge of the T&E development, which is being chaired by Pam Stewart, Executive Director, Cooperative Personnel Services.
Looking For Your Involvement
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned the importance of this initiative for addressing several of our guiding priorities. By the time you read this, initial planning will have already begun to develop a process and timeline. Our preliminary steps to develop and validate the exam include:
Planning for written examination
Design and specifications of written examination
Allocate item writing assignments and send to writers
Review draft items; prepare candidate instructions
Conduct pilot administrations; hold focus groups
Analyze results of pilots (statistically and qualitatively)
Select final items, passing point
Prepare validation report
Prepare final examination booklet and auxiliary materials
Administer exam at the October 1999 IPMA Conference in Washington, DC
As you can see, we have an ambitious task and schedule to meet. To accomplish the work, we will need lots of help in planning and design, item writing and review, pilot testing, etc. I urge anyone who would be interested in getting involved to please get in touch with Kris, Mike or me (see below).
Help Wanted!Individuals interested in assisting the exam development task force including the planning & design, item writing & review, pilot testing, etc. should contact one of these individuals: David Dye Kristine Smith Mike Willihnganz Individuals interested in becoming trainers for the classes on the competency model should contact Mike Willihnganz at the address shown above. |
A New and Improved Survey
Another way for us to move against our priorities is to check on progress we are making toward addressing them. To this end, Mike Aamodt, Marketing and Publicity Chair, has developed a membership survey that appears as an insert to this issue. In hopes of having you complete it, you will note that it is simple and short - more importantly, Mike actually designed the questions to address the priorities and objectives in our 1999 Strategic Plan.
Please take the time to complete and return the survey to Mike no later than April 30. If you prefer, you may also complete the survey online on IPMAAC's ECN web site. We plan to present the results at this year's business meeting at the annual conference in St. Petersburg.
So there you have it - two ways to get involved and to help IPMAAC make some strategic progress for the year. Do yourself and IPMAAC a favor - get involved!
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