Tuesday 7 February 2012

The Open Group Threaten To Certify Business Architects

During a recent forum thread in  - Business Architecture Community-  one poster declared the The Open Group's intention to start offering certification in business architecture.

Some are horrified at the prospect of an I.T. centric organisation claiming this space with one well known and  respected poster  declaring

"We must discourage Open Group and even some others from 'certifying' Business Architects using a short cut approach This will be very unhelpful and harmful for Business Architecture profession."

I do see his point when TOGAF (The open group architectural framework) doesn't provide a good example of this organisations approach to business architecture; indeed some say it is poor for enterprise architecture - let alone business architecture -and in reality many conclude that it is Enterprise Information Technology Architecture not EA.

Certification has pros and cons the latter being that many parts of I.T. have suffered quite badly from a culture of badge collecting which results in H.R. professionals and recruiters using the certification to exclude perfectly competent practitioners. You might say "get certified then" but this costs serious money and is alright for those working for larger corporate organisations with extensive personal development budgets but overall it impact inclusiveness and can create a potential elitist closed shop.

The debate on certification continues and we watch the discussions with interest.