Is EA Certification Important?

The majority of the respondents in Forrester's May 2007 enterprise architecture (EA) home page poll — 65% — say that EA certification is not currently important. But a significant minority of our respondents have planned or implemented changes to their hiring processes to require architect certification. This indicates that EA as a practice is maturing — IT leaders are beginning to agree that architects provide an important function, and they are increasingly in agreement on what skills they expect an architect to have. But our survey indicates that most hiring managers do not think that third-party EA certification guarantees that candidates have the key attributes that enterprise architects need to be successful in their environment.