Episode 9 of Chief Architect Forum News was recently published, featuring Kevin Donovan, Chief Architect of WVE, and Brice Ominski, DeepDive World’s global chief technology officer.
“As we kick off 2025, we’re reflecting on two key themes: personal competency and community building,” reads a description of the episode. “These pillars strengthen our individual journeys and uplift the entire architecture profession.
“In our latest CAF News podcast, we explore these topics, exploring how to foster growth, align teams with a common language, and build meaningful professional communities. We’ve seen how even small actions, like clarifying terms in workshops or sharing lessons learned, can create big waves of impact.”
The full episode can be heard here.
An excerpt follows:
Ominski
“It’s easy as an architect, especially at the start of a new year, to get caught up in, ‘I’m going to start doing new projects, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.’ But technology is changing so quickly. It’s more important to come up to speed quickly and sharpen our own swords every once in a while. That’s why the Chief Architect Forum has become a powerful venue that chief architects can benefit for. It is especially true now with all the courses we are doing with Iasa Global to help the architecture community grow with some set of standards.”
Donovan
“It’s probably very topical and good to be talking about this at the start of the year, because certainly professional development for architects is not optional. It’s the difference between leading transformations and being left behind. That’s a great thing to focus on and promote in terms of the Chief Architect Forum. Elevating the chief architect role through knowledge-sharing is one of the mainstays of the forum and certainly where a lot of people get a lot of value out of CAF.”
Ominski
“The key is to have a community that you can reach out to. And I mean that’s one of the great things about the CAF is being able to reach out to other members of the forum. Another benefit I discovered is being able to connect with some of the special interest groups. For example, we had a particularly interesting challenge related to understanding target operating models. What’s the industry doing? And you know, having the insurance special interest group at my disposal, I decided to reach out and ask, ‘What are other companies doing?” That way I could really get a pulse on what their chief architects were up to. That really made sense and was kind of like a sanity check. I don’t think as architects that we like to be sort of a one-man band. That’s why building and having a community has enormous benefits.”
Donovan
“Chief architects aren’t lone wolves. You need to be a part of this global community to tackle what are often shared challenges.”