 We've had questions coming through right the way, right way through the day and the first one came in, it has, under a show so that you'd answered it in the chat but I think it's a useful interesting question that may apply to more than the person who asked it in this case and this is a question saying I'm Togaf certified which is one of our knowledge based certifications. I'm Togaf certified as well as IT for IT and Togaf Business Architecture, DPBalk, ITL and certified enterprise architect from Carnegie Mellon and I'm interested in the OpenCA programme and I've looked at the website. Do I apply directly to the open group as my employer doesn't have an ACP? So maybe that's a good one for you, James. Very simple answer, yes. Yes, absolutely to the open group directly. If you fertile around on our website you'll find links to the open professions and you'll find direct links to the application forms where we've got volume where we don't have those forms available. Send a message to the profession certification authority. Again, there's a link on that web page and we'll sort you out. Great, thank you. Next question came in and I'm going to direct this one to Scott for obvious reasons. How does IBM manage awareness around technology standards during the onboarding process for architects and is there any repository maintained around standards? Scott, if you're there. Yes, I'm here and I'd invite Paul Holman to chime in as well. We do, through normal education, the core fundamental courses that I talked about being required for level one, we do point to references which include websites, hubs and other sources including open group sources for those things, including TODAF and other related methods and Paul, I don't know if you would have anything to add to that or not? I think the only thing I'd add, keeping it in the context of the profession, is, you know, part of the being a valid architect and keeping up to date and recertifying requires you to do so much ongoing education and we target our education around, obviously, you know, the latest or the most relevant things that we need to deliver and the things we need to stay abreast of. So ongoing education is a part of the requirement for recertification. So that's the kind of virtuous feedback loop I think that fits. Okay, thank you gentlemen. While you're there Paul, I think this one is probably as well, yes, as well aimed at you as anyone else. But this may be one that others can chip in on as well but I'm TOCAF certified, but I observed some challenges to make the industry identify with that. Can you give me some guidance on how to promote myself and ourselves with whether it be TOCAF certifications or other types of certification? Okay, so the simple kind of answer, I think the problem we've always had is a profession is actually people look at output and so, you know, although when you're going and you might need some kind of procedure, you might need a house building or whatever and you're going to go and look and want to know somebody is certified. That isn't the norm in the industry. However, if advocacy allows us to say, you know, the reason that we've been able to do this well, the reason that job has been done well, etc, has been reliant on the people that have got the competency and the certification. Then that kind of builds up that sort of groundswell of reputation. It's not easy and it's been a long problem, I think, for the IT profession. But my plea, and it doesn't help in an individual like tomorrow, but my plea is that anybody who is certified should make sure that whenever they have any kind of success or credit that they tie that back to that certification and how that has helped, which is why the advocacy part is important to me because that creates the brand and the connection that basically it's important to do. So, yeah, it's got a big tie back to the results side in anything that you have, I think is the key part. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Paul. And I know increasingly we see individuals promoting or at least sharing their electronic credentials, their badges in their social media profiles and on LinkedIn. It's quite a common thing to see now and that all helps to build, not just the credibility of the individual but of course of the profession and the program itself. Good. Anyone else want to chip in with anything around how to help sell the value of certifications? If not, we can easily move on. Question here, I think I'll direct this to you, Andres. But it's come up in several of the presentations this morning. And can you say a little bit more about the portability of the certifications under the Open Professions program? I've heard it mentioned, but does it literally mean I'm not tied to my current employer? Yeah, that's another really good question. So when we established the Open Professions program, we were thinking, you know, yes, just exactly that that we wanted a industry standard to define the criteria that we wanted the certification, the professional certification to be portable, that is, once you got it, it was yours to keep. And the whole idea behind a accredited program is that you're operating against the criteria, you're meeting the criteria that you would have to meet if you obtain certification direct through the direct route in the Open Group, as James just mentioned. So you get to, you know, take your credential with you if you're certified, and many companies are issuing, you know, their own badge, but also to the Open Group is issuing you a badge simultaneously. Other companies are just relying on the Open Group badge itself. So that badge is still good when you leave that company. And for as long as you're reaccrediting yourself, re-certifying yourself, you absolutely have a portable credential. Great. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's a good advantage. Now, we've had, I'm going to dive in here. We've had a few questions coming in about we've been talking today about the Open Profession Certification. What does that mean for the TOGF certification program? And just to be clear, that's not going away. The knowledge-based programs like TOGF and ARCMAID and OpenFair and IT for IT, they're all still there. They are, as I say, knowledge-based. You take an exam and get certified. So they aren't going away or being replaced with the milestone approach for this. So you can still do that. But what we do see is that people use those knowledge-based certifications as stepping stones in themselves towards the Open Profession type of certification. So on that point, there's a question that's coming here, which I know the answer to, but somebody else can answer for me. Is it correct that you must have TOGF 9.2 or 9.1 plus the TOGF essentials to obtain the Open Profession Certification? Peter's going to take that one. Thank you, Peter. Steve, I think it's very worth to mention that the Open Certified Architect program recognizes 37, what we call them, legitimate architecture methods. Right. And why are we doing that? Because architectural thinking, not shooting from the hip, following a decent process to come to a legitimate architecture. So TOGF is, forgive me, the word is just one of the methods that we recognize as architecture practitioners can apply in the field. So why not? Absolutely. So yes, as you said, there are many different frameworks and approaches recognized under the program. You don't have to get TOGF first. So, question for Jeff, I guess a two-part question. The first, the first part I'm just combining two in there separate in here. The first part was, is that, is CTPP actually live yet? But the other specific thing on what you've said is, could you elaborate a little more on your comments on how the program helped de-silo inside Seagate? This was CTPP, this, yes, trusted technology. So, Jeff, if you're there. Yes, I am here. So to answer the first question succinctly, yes, it is live. We are in the planning phases for a third level of certification beyond the master, the current level two. It has yet to be kind of rolled out. But yes, this is an open cert that you can go for. The second part of the question, how did this certification help us to de-silo? That is, I could talk for a long time on that one, but I'll just say that Seagate is a company that's been around for a long time. We have numerous families of products that we offer that have very different physical and digital profiles in terms of development, supply chain, manufacturing, etc. And this certification, along with the adoption of the OTTPS, allowed us to take these different product families that have different development cycles, development teams, development policies, processes, procedures, etc. And really apply one kind of standard for best practices across all of those. So in other words, we build a certain type of drive in a certain country versus a not completely, but mostly different type of architecture in another part of the world. And we're able to invite the experts from both of those development teams together and ask them to abide by the same set of best practices for both. This is a, it's a very universal standard. And as an extension of that, the type of people that we want to go out and perform this implementation, we can more readily and easily identify those skill sets by using this certification as a yardstick to do so. Great. Okay, thank you. Next question again you all have some could all have something to say on it. But maybe I'll start with you on rush. My question says person says my question would be which path is recommended for those of us with skill knowledge and experience in technical areas. But we feel like we haven't truly got the depth required to certify in a technical domain with experience at senior level to provide overall direction for the delivery of programs programs at work for the business through ICT transformation so I guess my interpretation of this is kind of a broad, a broad level of experience and some high level experience, but, you know, in the, in the T shape, the broad one, but not necessarily the, the depth. But any guidance for how to approach that or how, how our program could help that. Yeah, I mean, I think this is again, a fair question. I think it has to come from 2 different perspectives, the specialist perspective and the architect perspective. So, if they're really interested in becoming an architect. Then they should probably take a look at level 1 criteria. And, and begin to kind of take inventory of their skills and experiences remember this is an experiential certification so it's the application of your skills through a successful experience. So, looking at what is required at level 1 would be a fantastic start for whatever domain that you think that you might be able to, you know, recognize as your role in your organization or consultancy. If it's a specialty, obviously, you know what specialty that you're part of, or at least best identify as. And again, start with level 1, take inventory of your, of both your skills and the experiences, the successful experiences that you've had. So what projects have you been on? How does that stack up against the requirements for level 1, you may find actually that you're not level 1 you could stretch a little and go for level 2 or you could get certified in level 1 and begin to collect the milestone badges for level 2. So that's, that's probably the best way to start is to take that inventory and use the criteria as a checklist for, you know, guiding your career forward. Yeah, and that is certainly part of the, I mean, not just for the individuals, but for organizations that's been part of the value we've, we've heard is, you know, this, this provides a consistent kind of consistent breadcrumbs on the trail for people to think of when they're evolving their career. So, good, good. Question for Maureen. The data science profession is, is very, very new. And it's a hot area. How does one start getting involved or start down, sorry, start down the path to being a data scientist. When I have a keen interest, but I don't know how to start. Great question. We, we work with a lot of people in that situation. We actually have a competency model, which we can share IBM published it as a white paper. And it really takes a look at all of the different skills that are required for a data scientist. Goes into a fair amount of detail and allows you to kind of do a self assessment and where you have may have gaps. So, sometimes people are switching into data science path and starting with kind of assessing your own skills and then identifying those gaps is one step. And there's a lot of great education available for, you know, taking courses to fill those gaps. And then I would encourage them to take a look at the open group data scientist certification for level 1 and see there's clearly an outline there of what's going to be expected to become certified. So, it's a great roadmap that you can build between assessing your current skills and then how to get to the point where you be able to certify. Okay, great. Thank you. Next question is more about applicable to to the program as a whole. Various people have mentioned that the process today and the question is, what level of detail do we need to share as part of the project project expectations as we cannot share more details due to certain confidentiality. It's a common question. How do we know that we're not giving away too much of our company's intellectual property or details of client information? What's the level that we need to do in order to get certified in the program? Maybe that's a good one for you, James. I'll stop. That sounds a good challenge. The answers to questions are not required to, you're not required to give a detailed description of the content of a project. The questions are quite specific. So they'll ask you about what was explained something of the context and the requirements you're trying to meet and how did you demonstrate this particular skill. So, project information is asked for, but not in the sense of asking for the nature and content of the project, but to use aspects of the experience you gained on the project that demonstrated a skill. So, you know, that's probably as close as I can get. You'd need to sort of look carefully at the questions and take a view about how much you are prepared to reveal in demonstrating how you meet the criteria. So, as I said, I'll repeat, we don't want to have a detailed project description, but we do want to have information that demonstrates how you met how you meet the particular skill requirement. Just James, I'll add on there that, you know, all of our board members from the direct certification route are under NDA and they're actually take a stipend to kind of tie them to the work that they're doing. And we can always, I mean, you know, we've done this before, we can always put together a board of individuals that are from the community that you're from. Maybe you're a government entity and you need government folks to be part of that. Maybe you're in the telecom industry, maybe you need your own company to be part of the direct certification route. James, we've done this before, right? And if there are some sensitive sensitivities here, then I think we can address those. Yes, indeed. So, so first, first step is have a look and see what the, you know, whether the problem is real or rather just something that you might rightly be worried about, but validate it. And contact us and see how we can adjust it anything or accommodate you if there is a real problem. Excellent. So I've got a, I'm going to try and combine two questions here, but maybe, maybe that's a good idea. Maybe it's not the first part of the question is, is probably for, let's see, for Peter and Scott, primarily. It's about how do you sell to your organization the value of being an ACP? What is it that that brings? And the second part of the question is actually for those who are, let's see, for smaller, not international organizations, how would you recommend adopting the open profession certification, knowing that there are fewer people dedicated to enterprise architecture, for example. And, you know, how do you sell the value to organizations without international reach? So I guess it's a big company, small company thing, but there was probably some commonality among those. So I would think maybe Peter, do you have anything to say about that? Or I think you're on mute, Peter. There you go. Okay, so let me start then. So for small companies, we have a complete framework ready just to roll out in your organization. Not a lot of resources needed. You can just actually jump stock and go ahead with the program. You've seen from the presentation from Scott. You need quite a lot of things in the larger organization to get an established profession and likewise a capability, etc, etc. So, for a small organization is it's kind of plug and play. For a larger organization. The benefit is there. There's a financial benefit. That's very tangible. Also, and that actually applies to both that getting known to the market of running an established profession according to industries, open industry standards about a variety of professions we have for now makes a statement in the market. If you ask me, I have seen request for proposals from governments. Please mention how many open certified the other year you have. So that just a couple of top of mind value statements. Good to hear you take and that that that's part of the value of the promotion and the giving back and talking about it and sharing sharing on social media. It's all it all. Aside from the cultural aspects of hey, if you are an employer driving a profession in a professional manner that's always good. Absolutely. Anyone else anything to add on that topic. Yeah, Steve this Scott I'll just add that there were 2 main benefits that that I've noticed 1 is that you have the ability as an ACP to customize and make sure some of your. Extremely relevant information and capabilities included. But the other thing is, I think what Peter was referencing, which is other things happen when you make the commitment to be an ACP, which is, you know, you get that you get the team, you get the socialization, you get the teaming and collaboration, you start to build a culture. And I think that that's one of the products that's positive. Thanks Scott. Thank you. Next question. If I get certified as an open CA level one solution architect, can I then re certify as an enterprise architect. And if yes, should I apply again at level one, or can I go directly to level to as an enterprise architect. Hello, James. I'll take it because that's a sort of a process thing and the answer to both parts is yes. To be simple. You can change your discipline so you certified level one solution architect you've done to experience profile milestone badges for for for solution architecture. When you come up to recertification, you can submit an experience profile milestone in enterprise architecture and change your discipline to enterprise architecture. Or you can apply for level two in enterprise architecture. So the choice is yours, but the pathways are all open. Right, right. Okay. Thank you. Next question that came in through the chat. And I know the answer is going to be it depends folks so we need an additional answer to it depends. What what is the average time needed between acquiring a new badge and a level change. I think, I think what the question is intended says, you know, how, how, how long does it take to move from one level to another. I'll take a shot at that. And then, you know, I'd love to hear Paul home and talk on this too, because I think Paul, you're, you're, you know, one of those individuals who has a lot of credibility here on this, but. So, if you're, if you're already been in the, in the industry for, you know, 10 to 15 years, you're probably, you know, more than just starting out in your career. Hopefully you've got enough experience to get level one or level two. And in that case, there's no, you know, required, you know, pause to go between level one and level two necessarily. I think that the, the real question is, if you're starting off, you know, you know, just brand new into the industry using the criteria as a guide post. It usually takes about, you know, 3 years to get level 1 certified. Another, you know, 2 to 5 to get level 2 certified and level 3 really is all about, you know, kind of being able to advance the state of the art of the profession itself. So that's kind of a 10 year like milestone. You've been around for 10 years and you're making, you know, significant contributions to your company, as well as having an external influence. So more of a, a little bit of an executive feel at level 3. So those are kind of, you know, not solid, solid guide posts, but fairly decent. What do you, what are your thoughts there, Paul? So I want to say it depends. So it's so badly. Oh, I just did. Oh, a couple of different perspectives than if I'm going to change. So for me, people are always keen to kind of progress. And, you know, actually, there's a certain number of things you need to collect to be able to reach that kind of next level if you like. Just a slightly different perspective on it. Each of those steps is an investment in your career journey. And I genuinely believe that there is a, an argument to make sure that you have gotten the most out of each of those steps so that you don't overly try and minimize it. If you rush through to level 3 as quick as you possibly could, you know, just by kind of getting all of the right ingredients in place quickly. Yes, great. You will achieve a certain level. But I think, you know, to be fair to yourself, there is huge value gained in doing it. It's a bit like the difference between, you know, watching a film on one and a half time speed. You've reached the end of the film and you know the plot and you know what happened, but did you actually get the most out of it and everything along the way? So, you know, I think there's a gentle balance. The other side is I think time is one thing and we talked about process and requirements. One of the big things I just wanted to kind of come in and it's kind of related to this, but kind of related to some of the other questions as well is you should be using a coach. You should be using a mentor as a coach to help you work out and you know, how much content you've got, whether you're ready for the next stage and how valuable it is that you develop that area and how long you want to spend doing it. And that coaching is something that the process allows you to go and tap on someone's shoulder and say, will you coach me to the next level and have a discussion with them? And if they say, you know, you should be doing that in months or years, have the conversation with another adult and try to get to a sense where you believe you've got something that's realistic, that you can invest the right amount of time, get the most out of it and see yourself develop and grow along that path. So, slightly different, but hopefully that kind of helps set my perspective on it anyway. Thanks Paul. James, you've probably got something to say on this. Yeah, I did just want to add one thing. Apart from Paul, I thought that was a great response, very credible advice to people in their careers. But I think it's just important to understand, if you're coming into the program for the first time, you can do your benchmarking, do your self assessment. You can either apply for level one or level two. You don't have to do level one before level two. For level three, you need to have been certified at level two sometime in the past. So that's the kind of procedural thing. But if you're coming out at the first time, judge who you are against the criteria, make your plan and apply for the level that applies to you. Okay. Thank you. Question for Maureen. For architects, I understand many of them have backgrounds in IT. What is the typical background for data scientists? Great question. The backgrounds really do vary quite a bit for data scientist. In the past five to six years, we've seen more and more universities put programs in place. So for data science and AI degrees. And so those cohorts are graduating now and that's a very typical background. But we have people who have such varied backgrounds as long as they have the quantitative skills. We've got physics majors and a lot of economics majors and that kind of thing. But then we have just some wildcards that came from backgrounds you would never guess into the field. So the common element really is the quantitative skills that intense curiosity and problem solving approach and really wanting to do that. So we see a lot of people that have those kind of background skills and all the key elements and then they're able to transition into the role of a data scientist by just filling a few gaps in terms of their skills. Right, thank you. So I'm going to end on this one nice little challenging question at the end that it doesn't apply to any or not obviously applicable to any individual but it's about the programs themselves. The entire set of open certification programs under discussion reliable and can they be trusted without having at least a solid university education in the related field. So to me is, you know, is having a is having a computer science degree important for a technical specialist, for example, or, you know, is it a prerequisite or should it be. I really touched on this in my presentation to a certain extent, you know, I, I think a university degree, while not essential provides you with some intangible experience that learning in other ways doesn't. That is how to get along with people and had a team and gives people a little time to grow up. But in reality, I've had, you know, many friends who were fellows and in, you know, IBM and in Verizon who never went either to college or just finished an undergraduate degree and, you know, they they learned much of what they learned, you know, on the job. And to me, those were folks who are at least as every bit as good as those. Sorry, Scott, who have a PhD. And, and, and so do do does a PhD give you some, you know, experience. Absolutely. Does a master's degree give you an experience. Yes, absolutely. Does that mean that you can't get those base foundation skills elsewhere. Absolutely. So really this program is not about the where you get the base foundation where you get this foundation of skills from its measuring your ability to actually apply what you have through your experience and meeting their criteria. So you will have to have a similar set of skills in order to, you know, obtain the the experience requirements those conformance criteria requirements, how you got them. The standard is silent on that. I mean, anyone else got anything to add to that. I think it plays to the whole the whole topic of the extent to which, you know, a formal academic education is required and quite often we see we see individuals now saying you know I really for whatever I don't don't want to go down that path. Are there are there others I can I can take instead, you know, apprenticeships or whatever. You want to say something Paul. Well, I was just going to say, especially working in industrial. A lot of over the years a lot of people I know have come through an apprenticeship route have come come through very hands on type work either through, you know, people drawing used to be hands on once upon a time before it was automated, but you know, even the kind of manufacturing and assembly type areas. And interestingly, I can think of several conversations and I won't name them at all because, you know, but with people who said to me, I'm not technical, I'm not an architect. And then I've said, but just tell me what you do. I have described the almost perfect project profiles that you go, you know, you think like an architect you you you you to me sound like an architect. And all you need is coaching to be able to demonstrate an evidence to somebody else why what you've done is is worthy of the experience of an architect. You know, the certification to me is validation of what you have done, not what you have learned on its own side. Right. Good point. Good point. I think that's really part of the power of the certification as well. You know, we have a data scientist apprenticeship, you know, in the US and many companies are taking advantage of it. And so we've kind of proven that very point, you know, people can get the skills in any number of ways. And I think particularly with this past year of the pandemic. You know, when people were looking at alternative ways to increase their skills, we may be seeing even more of that coming. Yeah, and I think, you know, I've personally been over the years most involved on the enterprise architecture side. And although we're now starting to see some certainly undergraduate courses in enterprise architecture just didn't exist for a long, long time. You know, we started seeing some some modules, some additional, you know, some optional things and some master's programs. But you know, if you're talking about at least having an undergrad in the domain, then some of those don't exist yet, or at least not many, not much choice. So any final comments from the panel on that or anything else? If not, then thank you each and every one of you for your for your presentations and for sharing your, your experience and expertise on the topic. So a warm virtual round of applause for all our panelists today. Thank you. That's it folks for today. We will leave the leave the meeting open for a short while if you want to continue in the chat channel to share anything or give any feedback. Always welcome there are other ways to do that too. But hopefully many of you will be able to join us tomorrow we have a toga user group tomorrow where we're specifically going to look at topics such as toga in agile and digital environments and how it how it plays there, as well as toga from reference So hopefully many of you will join us for that tomorrow. And meantime, take care everyone and thank you for your for your time. Thanks everyone for the questions and your contributions and as I say we'll leave the chat open for a few minutes to see how see if any of you want to share anything and I can see some things coming in now so I'll leave it there. Be well everyone and see you again soon I hope. Thank you Steve we're just going to run the open group video now for the next five minutes while you can still put information into the chat channel if you want to. Give us your feedback be appreciated so thank you all and we'll hopefully have some of you here tomorrow. Thanks.