In professions where experience based certification has emerged as necessary, board certification is the mechanism of choice. Board certification involves interviewing candidates based on the professional experience. The interviews are conducted by practicing certified IT Architect professionals to expose the actual capabilities of the candidate. Professions such as medicine and engineering use board certification to ensure that individuals cannot reach full professional status without significant experience. IASA has chosen to offer board certification for the Professional level identified in the IT architect career path.

The CITA-Distinguished certification is awarded to the leading Architects of our time and validated by the community of practicing architects.

Board CITA-Professional/Distinguished is the first truly vendor independent and professionally run board certification which includes all IT architects.

Skills assessed by certification board:

• Business-Technology Strategy
  • Business Fundamentals
  • Strategy Development
  • Industry Analysis
  • Business Valuation
  • Investment Prioritization and Planning
  • Requirements Discovery and Constraints Analysis
  • Compliance
  • Business Architecture Methods & Tools
  • Decision Support
  • Knowledge Management

• Design Skills
  • Requirements Modeling
  • Architecture Description
  • Decomposition and Reuse
  • Design Methodologies and Processes
  • Design Patterns and Styles
  • Design Analysis and Testing
  • Traceability Throughout the Lifecycle
  • Views & Viewpoints
  • Whole Systems Design
  • Usability, Localization, Accessibility, Personalization/Customizability

• IT Environment
  • Technical Project Management Capabilities
  • Asset Management
  • Change Management
  • Application Development
  • Governance
  • Testing Methods, Tools, and Techniques
  • Platforms and Frameworks

• Human Dynamics
  • Managing the Culture
  • Customer Relations
  • Leadership and Management
  • Peer Interaction
  • Collaboration and Negotiation
  • Presentation Skills
  • Writing Skills

• Quality Attributes
  • Balancing and Optimizing Quality Attributes
  • Manageability, Maintainability, Supportability, Extensibility, and Flexibility
  • Monitoring and Management
  • Performance, Reliability, Availability, Scalability
  • Security
  • Packaging, Delivery, Post Deployment

• Software Architecture
  • Software Architecture Specialties
  • Software Architecture Development Methodologies and Processes
  • Software Architecture Tools
  • Software Engineering for Architects
  • Services, Workflow and Messaging
  • Advanced Quality Attributes
  • Advanced Stakeholder Management
  • Software Architecture Patterns
  • Technologies, Platforms and Frameworks