Association of Change Management Professionals. Bureaucracy or needed structure?

I admit it. I’m completely on the fence about the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP). The second annual ACMP conference is coming up in April and I’m not quite sure what I think about it—yet. Let’s look at their mission.

The Association of Change Management Professionals
(ACMP) provides oversight and management of a professional
certification program for change management professionals leading the
people-side of change. With this program, change practitioners, HR and
OD professionals, project managers, and other change professionals can
earn their ACMP (Change Management Professional) certification.

Evidently the ACMP governance and certification standards will be
presented at the conference this April. I won’t be attending this
conference and I will pay close to attention to what they
produce in terms of governance and standards because it will ultimately
affect RIVERFORK.

Why am I on the fence about ACMP?

Are certification standards resume fodder or do they provide
meaningful professional accreditation against a standard of excellence?
Are certification standards meaningful in terms of identifying skilled
and qualified professionals or do they create bureaucratic B.S.? Do
standards provide relevant and worthwhile measures to assess a high
standard of excellence? Or do standards create pointless administrative
constraints?

And who should set the standards? Do we really have any ‘masters’ in
the field of change management that should be setting standards?
Especially given the dismal results noted in the blog post, The Insanity of Change Management. Will standards pigeonhole much needed creativity and innovation in the stagnant field of change management?

Most of the best project managers I’ve ever known never bothered
with Project Management Institute (PMI) PMP certification and they
didn’t get a job because they had PMP on their resume. They
were hired because they had a network of people that knew the depth of
their skills. I’ve also known plenty of people that are ‘certified’ in
this or that change management methodology and couldn’t get a thirsty
man to drink water in the desert.

I like the idea of networking and establishing community. But
standards? Why? Why now? I’m more inclined to say let’s get some more
time in the saddle, get more international involvement in ACMP, and
then look at standards of excellence. Right now, ACMP feels like an
organization used to promote a few consulting and training firms.
That’s not okay. An organization in it’s second year should be
learning, observing, innovating, growing—not setting standards.

Convince me otherwise readers. What are your thoughts? What do you
think of ACMP communicating governance and standards in April 2010?