By Paul Preiss
The year 2025 will see Iasa Global (Iasa) launch six new CITA-A level courses as we further develop and expand our Academy of Learning for Business & Technology Architects. And this is just the beginning of an expansion of programs and career growth that we have planned. Including further courses, 3rd level/College collaborations and long terms mentoring for architects at all levels of their career and skills development journey, from aspiring to distinguished.
This year has been an intense journey for many of us. The rise of LLMs and agents, and the continued uphill battle to understand their application and usage in modern architecture. The repatiration of data centers combined with the surge in cloud workloads. The pulling back from microservices to domain scoped services. The growth in UI frameworks. The growing utilization of graph and vector databases. And of course there is the integration of operating and traditional technology. There have been plenty pros and a lot of cons but mostly a lot of lessons learned.
What is interesting to me is that we continuously learn the same lessons; that technology is fantastic if designed and delivered correctly. And it is a nightmare if it is not. Technology choices surround us, but there is a massive growing concern about the rise in technical debt, the lack of skilled and educated resources, the lack of security and liability in technical spaces, and what impacts failures will have on society.
For the first time in our modern history, we see the young move “backward” on the technology journey. The “digital free” zones where people find an escape from technology overload is just another indicator that more isnt better anymore. The failed projects, such as Sweden’s recent rollback of a $400 million healthcare system, which was simply designed badly. The failures in digital, agile and cloud transformations. Wow, its both utopian AND dystopian at the same time.
And Iasa leaders and I have said the same things: We need better architecture, and to get better architecture, we need better architects. In all other fields this complex, we have exceptionally well-trained and educated professionals to help guide us. And the time for that same safeguard in technology is now!
But creating an architect, much less thousands of them, takes a very special approach.
Career Journey
The research we have done into the BTABoK ((Business Technology Architecture Body of Knowledge), the competencies, and the career path have all led to a very thorough understanding of what it takes to create an architect.
This has led us to develop the Architect Academy. The academy is a training, mentoring, and certification initiative that runs publicly and privately both globally and locally. It includes training and certification for all levels of a career journey plus in-depth areas of architecture, like Hybrid Infrastructure, Software, Integration, Agile Architecture, AI Architecture and more.
This journey from aspiring to distinguished is what I have been chasing for 23 years. Understanding how to grow and nurture the right skills and competencies that allow an architect to deliver repeatable successes and business value. It is not a trivial problem, but the value is beyond words.
Opportunities to Learn
To grow an architect from Aspiring to Distinguished or Chief Architect is a long journey. It combines three big areas of growth: a) learning, b) experience, c) leadership/contribution. While Iasa is not able to provide direct experience (we work with employers of architects for that), we can provide learning and mentoring along the way. In some cases, the learning and training we provide actually help architects extend their experience beyond their current employer’s maturity.
Launching the NEW Academy Courses in 2025
Note: We are relaunching the Iasa Global Website. We will announce specific dates of each of the kickoff courses within the next few weeks as well as their detailed course pages on the new website!
Over the last year, we have worked with extremely talented and experienced architects to increase the education offerings at Iasa within the career path. We are launching six new courses to compliment existing industry-changing courses and certifications we already offer. Five of these courses are targeted at the Associate to Professional Level and one at developers and aspiring architects..
To better describe where these new courses fit in the pathway, I have shared below a few career ‘Track’ examples:
The Software Architecture Track
The biggest area of our research has been on the connection between strategy and execution. We have an awesome curriculum in business and technology strategy and business architecture already. So, we took on the next level of that in our execution and product delivery.
Arch4Dev (NEW) -> Core (Existing) -> Software Architecture (NEW) -> Large Solution Architecture (Existing)
Arch4Dev (NEW) – Kickoff Online in June ‘25
This course was designed as an introduction to architecture elements and as a preparatory step for Iasa Core and then Iasa Associate Courses. It is targeted at mid to senior developers, technologists, infrastructure and cloud specialists who want to get familiar with architecture and perhaps aspire to take the journey to becoming a fully certified architect.
Software Architecture (NEW) – Kickoff Online in August ‘25
Software architecture is designed as an advanced software course for those who are eager to understand the deep patterns that shape software projects including technical, business and human interactions. The course is designed around a series of structural problems in a complicated software project. It includes systems of systems approaches which integrate the software into business, information and infrastructure domains, but focuses on depth and breadth of software solution spaces.
Depth Topic Courses:
AI Architecture (NEW) – Kickoff Online in May ‘25
The AI Delivery and Strategy course provides a comprehensive foundation for executives, directors, managers, architects, and senior technical practitioners to understand how AI can be effectively used in an enterprise setting. This intensive program explores the essential principles, frameworks, and best practices that form the foundation to deliver AI solutions in an ethical, compliant, and ethical manner, giving forward thinking organizations a competitive advantage without falling prey to hype.
Integration Architecture (NEW) – Kickoff Online in Mar ‘25
The Iasa Integration Architecture course is a three-day in-depth integration architecture discovery for anyone who wants to understand how to architect integrated systems. This course discusses many of the practical architectures including digital, high performance event archtiecture, blockchain and conversion of existing legacy systems to modern microservices. Some of the roles that will find this course useful include:
- Architects and aspiring architects facing integrations.
- Developers that want to gain a deeper understanding of the architectural underpinnings for Domain Driven Services and API based development.
- Senior technology resources that need to support integration/digital architectures.
- Anyone who needs to understand how modern messaging can provide business value.
Agile Architecture @ Scale (NEW) – Kickoff Online in April ‘25
Agile Architecture @ Scale (AA@S) develops the practice of growing teams of teams using agile practices and using architecture to help address difficulties in large agile implementations. Agility at scale permeates areas of the business that were untouched by team-based agile practices. For example, business strategy, portfolio management, budgeting, procurement, innovation, and enterprise demand management. In large complex environments, organizations struggle to manage the overall architecture and roadmap or tie the delivered customer value to the achievement of business objectives.
The Infrastructure Track
Core (Existing) -> Hybrid Infrastructure (New) -> Large Solution Architecture (Existing)
Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure (NEW) – Kickoff Online in Sept ‘25
This comprehensive Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Architecture Course is tailored to equip IT professionals, architects, and business leaders with the skills needed to design, implement, and manage hybrid cloud solutions that align with business objectives. Integrating concepts from the BTABOK, participants will gain an in-depth understanding of both the technical aspects of cloud architecture and how to develop a strong business case for cloud transformation.
Business Architecture Track
Core (Existing) -> Business Architecture (Existing)
The business architecture curriculum is growing quickly at Iasa. The following five-day courses develop a deep understanding of business architect practices.
The Big Picture
What excites me about the coming years is the basis for education is shifting from vendors and employers to the profession and education. Traditionally, architects simply learn on the job. However, that creates a great deal of variability in the quality of architects overall. In the Iasa Academy we are putting architects in charge of this career path independently. This means that we are designing real experiential pathways to shape the quality of architects and what they are able to do uniformly.
Pilot Programs
We are excited to announce that these six new courses will be piloted across the first half of 2025. A schedule of pilot dates will be announced in a follow-on post in the coming days. To celebrate the launch of these Iasa Academies and new courses we will have a 50% discount available for the first 10 registrants on each of the new courses. Take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to participate in these programs by submitting an expression of interest to contactus@iasaglobal.org