A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the MCA administrators entitled ‘Mentoring – Session 1 Introduction’ which contained an outline of what is expected from the first mentoring session and an attached document to help assess the competency areas.

I speed read the message and focussed my attention on the important part - who my mentor would be. The other person in the ‘To’ list was Richard Godfrey – no ringing bells but I Googled him immediately. Richard’s Google Juice is a bit lower than he would like – he ranks below some guy who does ceramics and another who is seriously into abstract art. Not the profile of an architect at Microsoft – I figured that ‘Software Architecture, Engineering and Stuff’ was a closer match and went through Richard Godfreys blog.

I did not want to be lumped with a mentor that was misaligned to my feelings about software architecture, engineering and stuff and as it turns out I don’t think he’s such a bad fit. Although he works with Microsoft, seemingly working with partners and playing with all the new stuff like .NET 3 - at least he doesn’t seem to be one of those Microsoft pre-sales types who believe that any solution that doesn’t make use of Biztalk and Sharepoint should be re-architected until it does.

So what this 'mentoring' that goes on in the MCA programme? Although I understand some of the reasons why the mentor concept was introduced into the programme (coming out of the academic world when doing a dissertation) - I think it is inappropriately used. Architects would question whether or not someone that you spend a few hours interacting remotely with could be considered a mentor and most architects have had someone in their past that they could really call a mentor – someone who had a big influence on moulding their professional demeanour.

I was mentored into my architect role by an individual that I spent hours with virtually every day. That person taught me, assigned me the type of work that brought out the best in me and over time saw me as an equal in some areas – frequently using me as a soundboard. With all due respect to Richard's abilities, those mentor shoes are too big to fill. A comment here is made, 'Imagine Grady Booch applying and being assigned a mentor'. Good point. If Booch did apply and I was asked to be his 'mentor' I would may up all sorts of excuses as to why I would not be available.

A formal definition of mentor that encompasses what I have experienced of true mentorship is a bit difficult to find but seem to agree that a mentor has a profound influence on a person's career, education and professional advancement. This is not what MCA mentors do – I prefer to think of the mentor as a programme specific guide. Programme specific in that the mentor is specifically assisting you in terms of the particularities of the MCA programme and a guide in a sense that the mentor doesn't really teach a prospective architect anything new. If you need to be taught architecture then you shouldn't be in the programme.

Consider an RFI (Request for Information) situation for a large project that you may have been involved in. Let us assume for a moment that you have the perfect product and (give me some rope here) let us say that you have one pitch for the sale – a single document and a single presentation. In leading up to the presentation you would be well advised to understand as much about the organization as possible, the competition, the scope, the people and various bits of information that you may need. Without this information you could have the best product at the best price but won't make it to the RFP (Request for Proposal) stage. Often the best place to get the type of information you need is from someone who has previously supplied products to the organization, successfully pitched against the same competitor or has had some experience that would be of value. I think similarly of the MCA mentor as someone to help me make that one pitch to the review board.

Richard is currently assigned as my guide through the MCA programme and I intended to make the best use of him to put my best foot forward at the review board. The first mentoring session that I will have with Richard is one of four possible sessions and the first deals primarily with understanding what I are going to pitch to the review board, so that I don’t spend the next few months wasting my time on something doesn’t impress. We will also go through the worksheet that highlights some strengths and more importantly weaknesses – so that I know what I have to mull over (and blog about) in the coming months. For more information on the other sessions have a look at Miha’s blog.

The administrators of the MCA programme also use the mentoring sessions as natural go/no-go gates. Initial FAQ's on the MCA site had complicated payment and refund terms depending on how far an applicant progressed. This has been reworked to tie in with the mentoring sessions – the US$10,000 is split across five payments of US$2,000 each; a payment for each mentoring session and one for the review board. In order to progress through the MCA programme you 'pay' for a mentoring session and once paid for it can be scheduled. The trick comes that after a mentoring session, if you want to exit the programme there is no argument about who owes who what – by paying for a single session you have pretty much committed to consuming that resource. I suppose the reverse is true – if the mentor thinks that you won't make it then you could be advised to exist without too much hardship – although I think this would be exceptional as the idea is not to view each mentoring session as a complete interview.

I have been in contact with Richard but have not scheduled my session yet – I want to make as much use of the three hours as I can and rushing it or squeezing it in is not going to help me get the most value. I'll let you know how it goes.

Simon Munro

The editor of SQL Server Central, Steve Jones, picked up on one of my previous posts on the MCA costs and posted an editorial - inviting comment from the SQL Sever community.

The full thread can be viewed here, but for readers of my MCA category, I thought I would distil some of the comments made, particularly those by Andy Ruth, the head of the MCA programme.

While bearing in mind that most of the SQL Server community are highly technical engineering types it seems that those against the MCA fall into one or more of the following groups:

• Those against certification in general – possibly because they put a lot of effort into existing technical certifications that did not make a difference to their own careers or they have had certified techies on their projects that have been unable to deliver.
• Microsoft Bashers – You find them everywhere, even on a Microsoft biased technology site
• Those that as individuals feel that US$10,000 is too expensive

The more 'official' line of response can be found in Andy's comments and Miha's blog post that he posted in response (at some strange hour in New Zealand).  Some of the things that I gleaned from these responses:

• Microsoft is working on the credibility of the MCA certification by monitoring existing MCA-led projects for success.  Over time these successes will be used in the marketing of the value of MCA's.
• Effort went into the development of the programme, not just in terms of the definition of what makes an IT Architect but also the approach followed in existing experiential acknowledgement processes such as with a PhD (although the MCA is not trying to gain academic acceptance)
• From a cost recovery point of view, US$10,000 is not high – try and book five architects into a hotel for a week and review thirteen candidates – you start to run out of money fast.
• The value of MCA's is being pitched at corporates and consulting companies rather than individual techies that want to further their career.

I find this type of discussion interesting and important to participate in as it is clear that the MCA message is not particularly clear to a wider audience and these types of forums will start asking the questions.  In the past Microsoft's certifications have been more technical than professional and in public discussion groups the questions are going to be asked by the technical communities, such as SQL Server Central, before they proliferate to a wider audience – I doubt that process owners, project managers other members of the business end of IT have similar places to raise questions and awareness about the MCA programme.

While it is probably more important for Microsoft to focus their marketing efforts on the ISV's and corporate buyers of architectural skills, they still need to keep an eye on what the more technical types are saying – a negative mention on a top rated technical blog can undo a lot of boardroom marketing as the same people will head over to Google after the meeting and search for Microsoft certified architect.  If the search result renders a whole lot of whinging by techies the targeted business person may not be particularly impressed.  Personally I am curious to know what the marketing and product positioning approach is for the MCA programme.

A general Microsoft Learning problem is getting various people to understand the certifications that apply to their skills. For the SQL community there are far more relevant technical certifications (and probably more to come) and I assume a plan for certification that would apply to more senior skills, such as 'Datacentre Architect' or something.  If the various role players within a Microsoft shop understood their skills and certification and how it fitted in with everybody else's, then maybe there would be less complaining and derogatory references to one another.

Currently, outside of certification, there is a tussle between engineers and architects – where architects have little credibility with technical people and are actually the underdogs in the perception management game.  Continuing this dick measuring competition (apologies Ruth, I couldn't come up with a gender neutral alternative) when discussing the value of certification does not make things any easier for architects.

People who have an interest in IT architecture and IT architecture in a professional sense need to be aware of how they are perceived and positioned with all stakeholders, not just the SQL techies.  I also believe that existing MCA's and MCA wannabe's need to make sure that they at least monitor, or participate in, these kinds of discussions so that at the very least you begin to know what people think about you so that you can get your arguments in order.

Simon Munro

By now, the successful MCA Programme applicants know about the process to pay their US$10,000 programme fee. A fairly large chunk of money to pay over for something that has no guarantees and when you are, like me, converting from an 'emerging market' currency that is currently nose-diving – it is something that you have to pay careful attention to. Most people don’t have $10,000 lying loose in the centre console of their car and those applicants that have been accepted and are pulling together the cash have had a long hard think about the cost.

Personally, I have come to terms with the cost – both in terms of the possible return on the personal investment as well as trying to understand the real costs that will be incurred by those running the MCA programme – such one-on-one interfacing by clever people with much more important things to do does come at a price. My understanding and motivation of the $10,000 cost could be the subject of another post – this post reflects some of the thoughts I had a few months ago before committing to the application process.

One of the biggest criticisms of the MCA programme is the $10,000 programme fee and is used as the primary comparison with the far cheaper Open Group certification. In trying to figure out the value of having the MCA certification, I asked myself the question "Which of my peers will also become certified?". This is an important question because for MCA certification (or any certification) to have value there needs to be the right number of people certified – enough to create awareness and demand for the certification, but not too much so that it is considered ‘paper’ certification (as happened with the previous generation of Microsoft certifications).  Assuming those peers are clever certifiable architects, one of the reasons they may be put off is the cost.

Getting the Organization to Pay

The MCA certification is personal certification that is owned by the individual – not the organization that sponsored or supported it. It stays in the architects pocket whether or not he or she chooses to stay with the organization, goes off consulting or sits on a beach drinking caipirinha's. So it may be quite tough to motivate to your boss why he should sponsor you – I can't give you tips for your particular pointy-haired manager, but I have some ideas on what types of organizations will foot the bill.

The organization has to answer two questions:

1. Can we leverage this certification in order to make more profit?
2. Will the architect stay here after he as achieved certification?

Making profit out of certified architect

Obviously organizations have bigger pockets than individuals and a $10,000 invoice would not require the CEO’s kids to go barefoot. In the context of big deals the cost of certifying an MCA is 'the cost of doing business' as said by Tony Redmond from HP Services.

Most large organizations that are IT focussed have clever sales people that can use architecture certification to their benefit – having certified architects, project managers and other professionals can clinch a multi-million dollar deal. Also, since the MCA is trying to say 'We (Microsoft) reckon that this architect can handle a large project without messing it up' will help to get people onto the more lucrative projects – provided you have a salesperson who can articulate it.

Keeping the Architect

I don't consider myself a soft-issues HR specialist and staff churn is something that others can tell you about, but there is an architectural view to keeping architects around. Large vendors, integrators and software shops have often have technology that requires specialized skills that go beyond more general architectural skills and I believe that this is key when understanding how flighty architects will be.

If you think of some of the better techies that you have run into at places like HP, IBM and Microsoft – you can't imagine that they would work anywhere else (except maybe for their partners). These organizations train their people up so much on their specialized technologies that if they went to the competitor they would need a lobotomy and start again in the mail room.

As I see it there are two types of organizations that will foot the bill for certifying architects.

1. Large IT services organizations like HP services, Microsoft Consulting Services and some auditing firm departments that land big, long and complicated projects. These organizations would feel that they offer enough reason for the architect not to leave.
2. Small IT Consulting Shops where the architect is the owner or some other senior, entrenched individual that will never leave the organization because he or she helped build it from scratch.

Non IT Organizations

If you are working at an organization that has a lot of IT staff but sells something that is not related to IT, don’t hold your breath waiting for sponsorship – unless you are so indispensable that demands for sponsorship and foot stamping will cause them to pay just to keep you quite and happy.

Most organizations will fear that as soon as you are certified that you will bolt out the door waving your certificate and find a better job. Most people pursuing the MCA will not put out their hands for the legal length-of-service-or-else handcuffs that such organizations may wish to impose.

The MCA certification doesn't really teach you anything – except maybe that you are underpaid – and your employer won't see any real benefit by having you certified. You will still do the same job as yesterday and when being positioned as an individual within the organization your track record, which is quite visible, will be the measure of your worth rather than certification.

The Individuals

The currently certified MCA's did not fork out $10,000 each for their certification - although their organizations may have contributed in order ways during the development of the programme – such as HP and Microsoft. Of the 250 new applicants I don't know how many made it past the telephone screening (Andy, how about letting us know!) and I would be very interested to know which of those are being sponsored by their employers and which not. Those paying for themselves are taking a large, somewhat calculated, risk and I am sure that they have their individual plans for recouping the investment.

If you are considering the MCA programme and have come to terms with the programme fee it may be possible to rustle up sponsorship from your employer. I would be interested to know from MCA applicants out there if they are sponsored or self-funded. As for me, I am self funded – the MCA programme is a personal quest.

Simon Munro

Update 17 October 2006

This post was referenced by an editorial at SQLServerCentral.com and an interesting discussion ensued which you can follow here.

I should not be connected to the Internet this week - being away on honeymoon in Mozambique for a few days.  It is strange that while on a beach in one of the poorest countries in the world that you can check your MCA status on your phone.

Since many people have been sending emails and asking questions (which I have been unable to answer) over the last few weeks I feel that I have to break my rule of 'beach bum and not mouse potato' and post a short entry on my status.

I received an email last night informing me that I have 'been invited to continue into the MCA program' - an invitation that I am bound to accept before the 9 October deadline.

I don't know what took so long - maybe the 'stack ranking' algorithm was a bit tough, maybe it took a long time to herd the cats.  Maybe Andy Ruth can provide me with some of *his* experiences which would provide some interesting insights.

Congratulations to Carlos Goncalves, a fellow South African who was also accepted and, like me, has also been checking his email frequently.  I'd like to hear from anyone else who has made it into the programme (and even those who have not).  Let me know what your thoughts are and whether or not I can share them on this blog.

It seems that a tough part of the process is already over yet I know that there is still a way to go - at the very least I have to rustle up the US$10,000 (more about that in a future post).  Stats have shown that there is a lot of interest in these postings and I intend to share as much as I can, for those in the programme and those wishing to join.

For now though, I must return my attention to my wife and soak up the African sun...

Simon Munro

There were obviously a few people that missed the deadline to register for the first batch of candidates for the MCA programme and it did the rounds on some blogs and IT news sites.  Amongst the news circulating were statements that only one in five of the candidates applying were going to make it past the initial screening.  Although I don’t consider myself in the bottom eighty percent of anything, it was enough to make me nervous.  Obviously I have no idea of the kinds of people that have been applying – are they really hot architects, PowerPoint Architects or just hopeful developers?

More than a month after I submitted my written application I received an email scheduling the phone screen for the next week.  A month  is plenty of time to work up doubts, concerns and second thoughts, but I did use the time constructively.  Although a clear theme within the MCA programme is that you cannot study for it – you are either an architect or not – only experience will change it; but I didn’t think there would be much harm in brushing up on some of the latest trends, jargon and such.  I suppose that this was beneficial in some respects, but did also raise concerns that although I believe that I know my architectural niche backwards, there are whole heaps of architectural ‘stuff’ that I only have cursory knowledge – plenty of space for trick questions and ‘I don’t know’ answers.  In those few weeks I found myself asking a lot of questions and verbalising some of my thoughts on this blog.

The email that I received proposed two time slots that my 30 to 60 minute phone screen could be scheduled in.  After a response and a confirmation I had my interview scheduled.  The supporting documentation was quite interesting and useful – one provided a useful guide which I assume was the reference sheet that the interviewer would use. In the content of one of the emails the author went to great pains to explain the process and the necessity for personal interaction with the screeners/mentors and noted that there was limited capacity and that candidates would be ‘invited to continue in the program based on the stack ranking until all slots are filled’ – another (formal) reminder of the bottom eighty percent threat.

I tried to schedule my interview for when I was home from work and not during my commute and had it pegged for 7pm.  I wish the Americans would understand that Pacific Standard Time is much easier expressed as GMT-7 for the rest of the world – it was something that I had to look up; I even tried to confirm the time expressed as GMT something, but failed to elicit a response.  I made sure I was available in plenty of time and began a long, nervous wait where I read over my submissions as a reminder of what the interviewer had in front of him.  When my scheduled time was long overdue I started to think about what my waiting threshold would be – a phone call at 1 am wouldn’t be the best time for a difficult interview.  Fortunately my interviewer sent me a ‘I’m running late email’ and phoned a bit later – enough time for me to Google him which, although didn’t help me much, at least indicated that we would not be totally misaligned.

Eventually the phone rang, starting off disjointed during the first few seconds until we adjusted to the two second time lag.  I quickly dropped a disclaimer that the time difference would render me blunter than usual due to the lateness of the hour which was quickly answered with “Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of interview’ – setting up for a more relaxed environment.  The interview started with my interviewer, Charles, going over the objectives of the MCA programme and even though I have been following it closely, some additional insights were provided that were not in the official documentation.  I realised that he had already had a tough morning, some really difficult conversations and even some careful letting down of candidates that began to realise that they were not up to the grade.  Before we got into the swing of the interview he was interrupted and had to disappear for a few minutes – already running late, I could picture email and meeting requests building up while he took up a huge chunk of his day on something that was not related to his usual job functions.

Charles pointed out that he liked what he saw in my submission documents (good, he read them properly) and wouldn’t go through every single detail in each competency area.  He started off by asking me to introduce myself, which I tried to answer as briefly as possible while still trying to impress.  He then asked me why I chose the particular case study, which I answered differently from my submission which he had in front of him.  He then said he would ask me some random questions to asses my knowledge and abilities, but asked only one – about the testing process on the project which applied to my case study which I answered in a lot of detail (probably too much) – the completeness with which I addressed this in the project and the two second lag, which prevented any ‘Please Stop!’ interjections, meant that I covered all bases and probably waffled a bit.  By the end I am sure he thought that he was speaking to the same person who wrote the submission documents and probably decided not to give me another chance to bore him with another exhaustive answer to a random question.

He gave me some positive feedback and mentioned that I would be a good candidate to put forward.  I was grateful and positive about the feedback but could still picture the ‘stack ranking’ of other candidates that could push me off the acceptance list.  Before closing off the interview he asked if I had any other questions – never having spoken directly to someone who has been through the programme I jumped at the chance, while trying to be considerate that he had other stuff to do and other candidates to screen.  Although I have architected big, complex systems my case study was not one of those and I raised my concern that possibly the suitability of the architect was measured by the number of interfaces or the size of the database (as total budget is used by project managers for dick measuring) – he quickly put those concerns at ease.

I wrapped up the phone call by thanking Charles for his time and his input and left him to get back to other nervous candidates who were waiting for his call.

The schedule promised a result of the screening process by 1 September 2006, and on the day I received an email announcing a delay in the screening process.  I was not surprised as things ran a bit over when I was scheduled but was disappointed that I would have to wait for two more weeks.

I don’t know the final outcome of the screening, hopefully I’ll let you know this Friday.

Simon Munro

As mentioned in my previous post, that I wasn't paying daily attention to the MCA website on when and where registrations would finally open up to the rest of us and nearly missed the application deadline.  Luckily someone blogged (I can't remember where), that there were only a few days left and so I headed over to the MCA site.

Instructions on the site stated that registrations would be open to the first 250 applicants or the closing date of 14 July 2006, whichever occurred first. I didn't procrastinate for too long, just a brief reflection on how I would rustle up the US$10,000 that I was about to commit to.  The registration process seemed straightforward - go to Thompson Prometic, use the provided registration code and hand over your credit card details.  It made sense really - Microsoft already has Prometric as a registration/booking channel and the money would ultimately land up in the right place.  Being call centre phobic I tried to register on the website, but always reached a dead end and had to resort to speaking to a real live person.  Upon reflection this was not too bad either as I was able to speak to a local office, which would be a great help if you are not English speaking.

The same day I received my confirmation from Promteric, all clear and computer generated with necessary reference numbers, order numbers and notification of a 15 minute exam at some non-existent location.  I had a vague idea what to expect from the process and focused on more pressing things at work – pushing the MCA to the back of my mind until I had to do whatever came next.  I also kept an eye on my spam filter in case the important mail was rejected.

I don’t know whether it was because I only applied at the end of the application window or if it was just how the schedule worked, but the next day I received an email requesting:

• A copy of my CV
• A description of how I have displayed each of the program competencies
• An abstract of the case study that I intend submitting
• A completed InfoPath form
  

Not too much of a problem, but it had to be submitted by the next day!  A lot of stuff to get through if you only have one day to think about it and work on it. The ‘Application Package’ contained some helpful guides and enough instructions to negate the need for any clarification.  The email also explicitly stated that the documents must be submitted together and once only – corrections, changes or additional documents would be rejected.

The CV was easy, mine is always never more than one project out of date.  The abstract was not too tough – for a project that takes up most of my attention on a daily basis a one or two page document is no challenge. 

I hit a brick wall on the InfoPath form which insisted that Office XP SP1 had to be installed, and even though everything is fully licensed, it is a service pack that I struggle to install.  After much messing around I managed to get enough of the service pack installed to fill in the form, which is pretty straight forward and really just asks you to estimate your experience on various techniques and technologies that are relevant to architects.  The requirement was to save my InfoPath results as a .xsn file, which InfoPath whinged about so I saved it as .xml and sent it off as is.

Although I managed to find some time during the day to write about my competencies I really struggled to get it all together and sounding good.  The competencies cover such a broad range that it is actually quite difficult to jump from one subject to the next without having to really concentrate.  I can churn out a twenty page technical document or proposal in a day, but those seven diverse pages took a lot out of me.  The competency submissions had a lot of sentences that had 'I' in them - I did this and I do that - but I supposed that was not really narcissistic, rather a consequence of having to write in the first person.

Being in the GMT+2 time zone gave me about 9 hours grace, if the recipient was on the US west coast, but I’m not one of those people who think that same day is 23:59 in a time zone of your choice.  I wanted the documents to be in the inbox of the recipient promptly, completely and in order.  I even thought that it could have been some sort of test - those that submit just in time or begged for extensions may go to the bottom of the pile.  I was not taking any chances.  I managed to get everything sent off it time to arrive early in the morning on the desk of someone on the US west coast. 

I was happy with what I submitted but felt intellectually drained, wishing that I had a bit more time and had thought a bit more about my competencies in the preceding months.  About three hours later I received two emails simultaneously: one thanked me for my submitted application and the other announced a two week extension to the deadline. 

Aaaargh!

I put in a serious amount of effort in a single day only to be discredited by a bunch on whiners (probably in later time zones) who managed to coerce an extension out of the programme operators, who I’m sure needed the submissions to meet their own deadlines.  Never mind, I thought, my submission rocks and I wouldn’t have been able to write it much better if I had months.  At least I was done.

All that I had to do was wait for the next step, the telephone screening, which will be in my next post.

Some advice to future applicants- Get MS Office InfoPath installed and on the latest service pack and go through the competency areas that are clearly described and make sure that you have your thoughts in order up front.

Simon Munro

According to the MCA FAQ, there are currently 63 Certified MCA's worldwide.  These MCAs are quietly getting on with their work and are so buried on projects that they haven't really had much of a chance to make themselves known to us.  I have only come across Richard Godfrey and Mihak in the blogosphere that have announced their status.  Since the MCA programme requires that candidates are reviewed by existing MCAs, the obvious chicken-and-egg problem needed to be overcome and I suspect that the initial MCAs were selected by a combination of a knows-someone-who-knows-someone network and large vendor interest (Microsoft and HP).

Although information about the MCA Programme was up on Microsoft Learning last year, the rest of us had to wait and see what would happen when the MCA programme went live.  Not being a 'Pick me! Pick me!' donkey I resisted the urge to send such an email to Microsoft and monitored the website on an occasional basis to see if the process had evolved.  Not being on my daily to-do list, I nearly missed the quiet announcement but managed to apply before the 250 seats were filled.

Although I applied, I have not yet been accepted into the programme and am awaiting the results of my screening.  You will have to check in on my progress to see if this and subsequent posts should be filed under 'How to become an MCA' or 'How not to become an MCA' as I expose myself to the embarrassment of being turned down.  However, I have been urged to blog about my experiences with the MCA programme and, regardless of the outcome, it should be of some use to aspiring applicants.  Also, I think that although Microsoft has announced that the MCA programme is out of beta and is live, I think that there may be a service pack due (considering the audience, an allowable metaphor) as it is rolled out to the likes of me, in Africa, and other 'users' that the programme will have to accommodate.

While the existing MCAs were personally invited or coerced (and sponsored) into joining the programme, there are 250 people out there who actually hauled out their credit cards, picked up the phone and said 'Pick me!'.  The first part then that is relevant is figuring out for myself as to whether or not MCA is right for me and if I am up to standard.

There is not much information about the MCA programme other that what is on the official site and Mihak's MCA Blog.  I will endeavor not to reproduce that content by listing all of the competencies and how you measure up to them, rather expressing some of my thoughts and rationale.

Belief in the Certification

There is a lot of negativity towards certification, particularly Microsoft, and you have to be pursing this certification for reasons that you believe in.  If you believe that you are the best architect ever and no-one can tell you otherwise then good for you, I am sure you are a very happy person you can drive off in your Hummer with 'ARC1TECT' personalized plates - MCA is not for you.  If you believe that the US$10,000 is too much and the MCA certification will never have enough credibility to recoup your costs you are also not going to cut it.  If you believe that the peer certification process smacks of elitism then you will have to go elsewhere to find a computer based test.

If you believe, like myself, that such certification is good for the industry as a whole and being interviewed by a panel of rather good peers sounds like a good process, then you are at least starting at the right place.

Enough Experience

The first drafts of the MCA requirements stated (I think) at least three years of architecture experience and (I think) at least five or eight years of IT experience.  The current requirements seem to have dropped such specifics probably due to the many 'Aw duuuude, that's like a long time!' comments by many twenty-something senior developers.  Although the actual number of years may be irrelevant, by trying to understand the coverage that is required, I understood that the experience needed is quite high.  Not just ten years on the same project at one corporate, but constant, ever changing experience in many organizations.  Only by being exposed to the various types of organizations, users, implementers, project managers, vendors and technologies will you have gathered enough knowledge to form opinions on architecture that the review board is looking for. 

If, while sitting in the Ops room waiting for a backup to restore over four hours at 01:00am, you can entertain the operators with enthralling anecdotes of projects, technologies, successes and failures - you probably have enough experience.  If you think "I have seen this movie before and it has a sad ending" about once a week and stop the people around you making an avoidable mistake - you probably have enough experience.

Leadership

The MCA programme is heavy on leadership.  It probably stems from the fact that architects have very little title-induced power and have to rely heavily on influence, communication of their vision and so on to get things done.  Also, I think that the programme is looking for people who have mentoring and natural leadership capability as it not only part of their definition of an architect, but is also key to driving the programme forward. 

The leadership question was the toughest for me to assess my suitability- I have worked with some really great leaders in the past and don't consider myself to be in their league.  However I think that the leadership skills required are not the ability to build a multi-million dollar business in a few years starting with $5 in your pocket, but rather building a multi-million dollar system within an existing environment and (hopefully) a starting budget - I think there is a difference in terms of leadership skills.  Three key leadership aspects that I think are necessary are 1) to be able to get 'buy in' to your architecture to external stakeholders,  2) to get the implementers to believe the technical aspects of the architecture and 3) to mentor, train, delegate and generally uplift the skills and capabilities of your team.

Standard definition of 'Architect'

While the exact definition of what IT Architecture (and what an IT Architect is) is in flux, all the stakeholders are herding it in the same direction.  Your understanding of architecture is not good enough if you haven't read or participated in various debates about what architecture is.  The MCA programme is participating in this debate by attempting to put a peg in the ground as to defining an architect (the role, not the definition of architecture) and it is more or less aligned with current thinking. 

When sitting in front of the review board, they have the power to determine of you fit that role - by their definition, and as more architects are certified, so that definition will perpetuate.  I don't think that standing in front of the review board stamping your feet and trying to verbalise your different opinion will win you much support.  The review board has a standard and if you propose a different one then off you go and go and define it carefully, generate mass following and find financial and moral backing - but elsewhere please. 

However, you are since things are at an early stage (in terms of definition of the term 'Architect') you are welcome (and encouraged) to voice your opinion on the Internet before you get to the review board - by the time you get there your arguments would at least reflect or consider the current thinking.

Technology, Culture and Location

Although it is in the official documents, it warrants reinforcement - although the MCA programme is a Microsoft-driven certification, they are trying to be technology agnostic and architectural practice on the Microsoft platform is not a pre-requisite. 

I imagine that Blake Ross, the Firefox architect, is a pretty good architect (even by the MCA definition) but it is highly unlikely that he will apply for certification although I do understand that Java/Websphere architects have already been certified.  Don't let the stack of Microsoft technologies scare you, but from a communication point of view it will probably be easier if you are an architect using more mainstream technologies. 

Since the board review is conducted in person, it will probably necessitate a trip from the southern end of Africa to Europe for my particular board review unless some MCAs can motivate an African safari.  It seems that being international is what the programme is about and you should still apply if you don't speak English or live outside of the USA or Europe - after all, the more geographically and culturally dispersed the MCAs are, the better it is for the programme.

Get into the ring

The review board process does not sound like a relaxed couple of hours and you will get grilled by a bunch of skilled, intelligent architects that, depending when you are scheduled, may be a bit grumpy, hungry or irritated.  Handling one or two architects in a relaxed environment at my own office is a piece of cake, but I imagine that I will be under serious pressure during that board review.  While it is a daunting task I am confident that I can get into the ring and handle a round or two with the heavyweights... can you?

On my next post I will describe my experiences of registering for the MCA programme and doing the paperwork.

Simon Munro