Moderator

Dana Gardner
Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and ZDNet Blogger

Participants
James de Raeve, VP Certification, The Open Group
Len Fehskens, VP and Professional Lead, Skills and Capabilities, The Open Group
David Foote, CEO, Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer, Foote Partners
Jason Uppal, Chief Architect, QRS Research and Services

Panel & Podcast: What Skills and Experience Differentiate the Enterprise Architect in a Downturn?

As the architect’s role continues to evolve in scope with the increasingly global and distributed enterprise so to do the core skills and experiences required of them. Professional certifications, such as ITAC, ITSC and TOGAF, can be career differentiators at any time, but are particularly crucial during periods of economic downturn such as we’re currently experiencing. 

This panel will examine the evolving job requirements of today’s enterprise architect, discuss the value of professional certification programs and how certifications help to not only legitimize and validate the profession, but also provide much-needed demand for the skills, capabilities and experience that certified professionals have within their organizations.  The panel will also include perspectives on how certification can affect market demand and salary levels for those certified.

1. Introductions and set up on how the down economy is impacting IT functions, particularly around Enterprise Architecture (EA), and how new skills are in growing demand.
   • Cost cutting and drive for efficiency aids the trend toward a stew of services from variety of sources, models
   • How does this change the definition of EA ... what does the audience want to focus on in this area?
   • What are the right skills? More emphasis on business process management? Skills that move traditional IT and app dev to business analysts and architects?
   • How is a strategic view of IT and business requirements merging?
2. Who provides authority and leadership as these shifts commence and >mature?
   • Given so many current variations on the EA theme ... will this now become more standardized?
   • Do we need an uber architect, and if so how do we describe their role?
   • What certifications or preparatory mechanisms exist and will they move this all to a standardized role/position?
3. What role if any will vendor-based certification have in future?
   • Are we passed the technical- or product-level certification era? Why or why not?
   • Is TOGAF the right model from which to progress? Why or why not?
   • If services and process with defined business outcomes are the new goals, how else can a certification process begin?
   • Who else other than an EA could fill this role? Where do they come from?
4. Compliance, risk and governance issues, how can EAs enforce? From outside of IT? Inside?
   • Role of security ... Can this role exist without strong security and governance credentials?
   • What kinds of business-IT hybrids roles are likely? Why have these been hard to far?
   • Can outsourcing make a difference?
   • To what degree will EAs be writers and enforcers of contracts? Is a legal background useful?
5. Examples and models of how the new era and roles of EAs are likely to develop
   • What are your seeing in your organizations?
   • Why are there no recruiters (headhunters) in this field?
   • How do developers and business leaders react to this? Will developers be enablers or roadblocks?
6. 6) What does the future hold? How will EAs transform the role and power over hybrid services and process clouds?
   • As the definition of an IT Department changes, with more emphasis on processes and services and ecologies of partners, how should EAs respond now?
   • How can EAs lead the IT departments to this future?
   • Impact of cloud, SaaS, outsourcing over time?
7. Questions from audience.
8. Closing, summation and thanks. Close of podcast section.

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