Trust Me. I'm a Certified Master Architect

[Chris Pearson]

Disclaimer: The ideas, thoughts, and opinions in this post reflect my own views and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, Accenture.

How did the Certified Master Architect (CMA) program start? John Donahoe, former CEO of ServiceNow, made a habit of meeting with many of his customers' C-Suite members. A common request he heard from them was the need for more experts, vetted by ServiceNow, to help them deploy the platform properly. “We’re scared that in five years, we’ll have to blow this thing up and take on a new Phase 1 go-live project again because we made too many mistakes while deploying,” they’d say. It was from this feedback that ServiceNow’s Certified Master Architect program was born.

With a high bar of qualifications just to be able to apply for the program: a cohort size in the low twenties hand selected based on skill, years of experience and an application letter, it attracts only the best of ServiceNow Implementation Specialists. After a six month program of weekly classes and discussions, along with multiple in-person dedicated learning sessions, the students exit the program by way of a simulated pitch session where based on a case study, the architect presents their architectural design, implementation plan, and project timeline to a panel of ServiceNow experts who are role playing as the customer and ready to grill the student in an effort to have them defend their architectural design.

As a member of the inaugural class of Certified Master Architects (CMAs), we often discussed how to best describe a CMA to ServiceNow customers. Our favorite description came from one of my fellow cohorts, Chris Collazo, which went something like this… A Certified Master Architect has achieved ServiceNow’s pinnacle of technical certification, through a process designed to produce graduates which help their customers obtain the most value out of their ServiceNow investment.

I’m Chris Pearson. You can trust me. I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I am a ServiceNow Certified Master Architect.