Leadership By Numbers :: Open Group Proposes IT Architect Certification

IBM and HP have both agreed that the Open Group initiative for IT Architect certification has their endorsement. Without knowing much of the details (there is only a single press release that offers a description), the intent seems impressive and it is certainly needed. J2EE in particular and web-services in general are technologies that are spread over every possible implementation. Vendor-neutral certification is an appealing idea. Too bad that I have a hard time counting successful precendents. CISSP and PMI are successes, but any non-vendor Linux certification has not done as well (hm, note that I have the Linux+ cert). There have been lots of generalized DBA programs, and high-level, esoteric, programming certifications which never do much more than a niche service.

I know I sound jaundiced, it's just that a broad brush IT Architecture certificate is going to require a lot of depth from a lot of products before anyone will believe it to be credible. On the other hand, it may also be a consequence of the outsourcing of commodity IT skills. We have to distinguish ourselves, somehow.

Comments

3 - James: Thank you for adding your comment. I agree with your comment, but I assure you that the topic of certification is complex and always an awkward effort by any vendor. Certification should be timely, but it is a creature carved from committee decisions: marketing wants specific features added, support wants to stop the repetition of the same questions, sales wants a dig at the competition, education wants to line up curriculum, et al.

I think the idea of a vendor-neutral certification for IT makes sense, but I wonder if it is more a Platonic ideal that cannot exist in the material world. Let me place it more forcefully--I l-o-v-e the concept of vendor-neutral certification. I've tried to promote such programs, but they lack traction. Without a marketing presence and buy-in from the very vendors who we want to overview, there is little incentive, money or recognition. Does the IT manager want to hire a DB2 admin with SAP experience or someone with an IT Architect certificate? Linux+ or Novell SuSE?

Posted by Jack Dausman At 11:52:42 PM On 12/05/2005 | - Website - |