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:
- Can we leverage this certification in order to make more profit?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.