Chief Architect Forum
The Chief Architect Forum (CAF) is for practicing chief architects employed with non-vendor organizations (with the exception of vendors with Iasa Corporate Membership). The mission of the CAF is to provide a senior strategic board which is empowered to mentor and lead the architect profession as well as a network of unbiased senior professionals within a leadership network.
The CAF provides invaluable services to its members. These services include:
- Monthly summits on topics selected via survey by CAF members.
- Working sessions with CAF members on critical topics in members strategy.
- Technology and Business Strategy seminars and workshops.
- CAF-only resources and materials.
- CAF branded merchandise and gifts.
- Vendor and speaker selection on specific topics for CAF members.
- Special invitations for speaking engagements. – Coming Soon
- Individual and group mentoring by senior CAF members. – Coming Soon
- 2-3 In-person CAF Summits per year. – Coming Soon
Iasa frequently finds that low-maturity architecture teams have less engagement with business leaders, produce documents and artefacts that are rarely read or referred to and often the architects themselves have limited business exposure. To complement corporate membership, training and certification, Iasa is developing the CAF program to form a network of the highest level architects, CTOs and CIOs in the world.
Membership is open to any individual serving in the role of Chief Architect (head of business technology strategy and innovation). Titles of chief architects may include:
- Chief Information Officer
- Chief Technology Officer
- Chief Architect
- Chief Strategy Officer
- Chief Financial Officer
- VP or Director of Engineering
- VP or Director of Strategic Planning
Rules of CAF Membership
The CAF is invitation and nomination only. A CAF member may nominate any other but an invitation must come from the entire CAF membership. Payment of membership does not guarantee entry.
The CAF is only open to chief architects with no sales agenda. While architects from vendor organizations may be invited, only those who have no sales or marketing basis in technology will be admitted. Vendors may be invited to speak, train or participate in some CAF activities, but will not be admitted as vendors. This include consultants and other individuals with potential conflicts of interest.
The CAF requires participation from the individual fulfilling the role of chief architect for a minimum of half of the official meetings. One additional individual will be invited from the member organization but the chief architect must attend half of the sessions themselves instead of sending a representative.
The three engagement offers are all based on an underlying “time is value” proposition:
Corporate Membership is a pre-requisite as Community and outreach is an essential part of an Architects development. By driving the attainment of desired maturity levels, reducing the time to Architecture Maturity (the desired outcome), Iasa helps organizations demonstrate the impact that IT Architecture can have on business objectives.
