First of all – reminder that the deadlines for early bird pricing on the Architect Boot Camp workshops in October are creeping up on us.  Get your registration completed and reserve your spot at Early Bird Rates!  There are limited seats, and all we need is your registration, and you’ve got your spot.  We’ll send you confirmation and invoices.

I’ve been answering a few questions in email lately, so I thought I’d add the questions in this blog:

Question: Do you see a big benefit from the Solution Architect Workshop (SAB)?  What’s the difference between it and the Information Architect Boot Camp Workshop (IAB)?

Answer: The IAB will teach you what the role of IT Architect is, how the various types of IT Architects are interrelated, how they fit into the project lifecycles, and how to be an architect practitioner.  You’ll learn the skills you’ll need to play any architect role and the basic architecture methods and process.

The SAB will teach you how to do solution architecture, review many options and put together solutions.  You will learn the skills as well as the steps and process to complete various Solution Architect activities and artifacts.  It is the best course for someone in a project architect role, provided the attendee already knows how or has basic IT architect knowledge and skills

Question: Should I take both of these courses together?

Answer: As we go through the IAB workshop, we are going to practice the various IT Architect skills as they are taught.  We’ll work on a project throughout the three day workshop, and each successive step will build on the previous, so that we will have gone through a typical Architecture activity from start to finish after we have spent three days together.

In the following two days in the SAB, we’ll learn more about putting solutions together and about the various scenarios the Architect faces when asked to create or update the architecture.  We’ll use the existing Architect’s skills if the attendee is just joining us, or the skills just acquired in the IAB if they are continuing.  It is not necessary to take both, but if you are a self-taught architect, it would be beneficial to take both together, to learn some of the best of breed approaches, and practices.

Question: What happened to the 1 day Architect Boot Camps – The Introduction and the Executive Architect Boot camp?

Answer: These training sessions have been held multiple times in the last few years and demand wasn’t high following the catalog release.  These classes are targetted to be offered as an online offering in October.  There will be some self-study, and some instructor/participant interaction offered.  More information to follow – stay tuned!

Question: Where are the classes being held?

Answer: Currently we are only scheduled for Winnipeg in October.  We have plans to offer some classes in Phoenix Arizona in 2009, and are currently looking into demand in other large Canadian and U.S. centers.  Classes are always available in group settings.  If you are interested in booking a class for 6 participants or more at your workplace, contact us for more information – choose the option of “other” for location and fill out the rest of the form.

Question: Do you offer a coaching and mentoring service?

Answer: Our online coaching service will be released today – more information later on.  We do also offer Enterprise Architecture coaching through EA directions.  For more information on either of these services, please contact us, or watch for our information blast coming out shortly.  If you would like to get on our list for notification, please fill out the contact request form.

If you have more questions, or have other architecture problems or questions you’d like answered, please give us your comments.

Happy Architecting.