Features

The Certificate Era Is Over ?

By Priya George

"I liken the new Master Certified IT Architect to a symphony orchestra, with the top architect playing the role of a composer,” says Mike Sylvia, Executive of IT Architecture Professions at IBM and one of the members of the Open Group that developed the new certification. IT skills have been growing in value at a rate nearly two times that of certified skills over the last year, several inquiries have been made about what’s next for vendors who rely on their certifications programs to gain mind share for their technologies and support sales of their products.

"It’s true that the lion’s share of certifications available to IT workers today are vendor-driven, although the vendor independent certifications from such purveyors as the SANS Institute, Project Management Institute, Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC) are among some of the highest paying and most popular,” remarks David Foote, Foote Partner’s co-founder, CEO and Chief Research Officer.

"Vendors created the certifications principally to sell their products. What fascinates me is that when we asked several vendors recently if they use their own certifications internally to qualify their own employees’ technical skills, the answer was largely ‘no’. I guess I expected to hear that, but it still surprised me”, Foote says.

"It appears that they do not consider their own external certifications tough enough for their own people, and that may just be the issue with employers who are starting to place less emphasis on technical certifications, in favor of paying more for other qualities of IT professionals that are more critical to their business. Things like industry knowledge and experience with their customers", Foote continues.

Vendors have been coming together to create new 'guru' level accreditations while others are doing this by themselves. All of these new master level certifications are vendor-independent and technology-neutral in focus and available to any person who can qualify.

Once such certification, 'Master Certified IT Architect', was developed by the Open Group, a consortium consisting principally of top engineers at Hewlett-Packard and IBM. The focus of this group has been to create a credential based on its definitions of "global standards for measuring the skills and experience of IT architects, and for the operation of IT architecture practices within enterprises". It is a "premier, global certification program" aimed as practicing Enterprise / IT Architects who must be able to perform independently and take responsibility for delivery of systems and solutions as lead architects, and who have at least three years recent experience of developing IT architectures. Candidates must demonstrate having core foundation skills that include people skills, project management skills and architecture skills, and meet requirements related to experience, professional development, and contribution to IT Architecture community" and pass a peer board review to achieve designation. The Open Group will make the Master Certified IT Architect available in several ways: Practicing IT architects can appeal for certification by demonstrating skills and documenting experience and successes with past architecting efforts.

"But if that’s what it will take to keep skill certifications upfront in the minds of managers competing in the intense and dynamic IT employment market in which they’re now finding themselves in, then so be it", Foote concluded.


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