Exams should be clear and straightforward; questions should not require two or three careful readings to determine exactly what is being asked. I encourage SAP to re-write its exams so that they are immediately comprehensible.

A few comments on certification and then a topic suggestion or two.

First, in the podcast you mentioned you weren’t totally clear on the origins/purpose of Zia’s comments. What happened is that SAP’s Darren Hague encouraged SAP Mentors to show up at the PKOM (SAP Partner Kick Off) virtual event.

I attended, and during Zia’s keynote I was struck by his emphasis on certification in the context of SAP’s stated goal of improving the quality of consultants in 2009. He made a point of saying that SAP would be strongly encouraging SAP customers to hire certified consultants. Obviously, since he was talking to SAP partners, this message was also about making sure services firms are aware of just how highly SAP values certification.

So, I Tweeted this info from Zia, and more Tweets quickly sprung up. Dennis Howlett brought it to the SDN audience via his provocative blog entry and the rest is history.

I wrote a bit more about this on a recent blog I did on PAC’s feedingthesapecosystem.com blog.

At any rate, back to certification:

Peer review: I am growing more inclined to agree with your points that a peer review ratings system (along the lines of an eBay model) would be much more powerful and effective than simply a paper test. What will be interesting will be whether this gets incorporated into certification in some way or not. At any rate, it’s an interesting thing to talk about.

Also good to keep in mind that ASUG has launched such a system, called ASUG Edge, though with the twist that in this case, the customer rates either consulting firms or consultants. There are some pros and cons in my mind to ASUG Edge, and it’s only been running since last summer, but some further investigation of what they are learning could be instructive.

Another point is that this last round of debate on SAP certification, while very interesting, mostly did not contend with SAP’s new three tiered certification system. Most of the opinions on certification, pro or con, were based on the traditional SAP certification which is now the lowest of the three new levels. I’m by no means an expert on the three levels myself, but I do believe it will be important to see how these different levels affect perception on certification quality and effectiveness also. My understanding is that at least on the Master level (third and highest tier), that a field work component will eventually be included in the certification.

To me, an SAP certification that incorporated field work and peer review would be far more powerful than anything we have seen to date. On the other hand, perhaps a peer/customer review system would be totally separate from the actual certification. In that case, it could still be useful but I have a hard time imagining SAP formally supporting something like that, unless it was tied into certification in a way that did not diminish the value or significance of formal certification.

Oh, and Ed had a good point in the comments above about how customer perception of the value of certification is more important than whether an individual consultant sees the need to be certified. I think that’s true, and I’d love to hear more from actual customers about this. Would be great to see more data about satisfaction levels with existing certification from customers who consider that during the hiring process. Along those lines, fellow SAP Mentor Jim Spath is hoping to do an ASUG survey about this, I chipped in with some of the survey questions. I think right now he’s got a support ticket out on a survey bug, good times, but hopefully more data can be gathered that will inform this discussion further. I’m sure Jim will share whatever he learns.

Oh, and future topics: I’d love to hear more about ABAP versus Java in the SAP landscape (a meaty topic that seems to have a lot of misconceptions you guys might want to dig into), as well as anything you can share about SAP’s .Net capabilities. I don’t think we talk enough about .Net given how many SAP users run Windows. I’d enjoy hearing more about the different SAP GUI options and GUI creation tools, and which you like for different circumstances. I’m also interested in your take on SAP and Software as a Service. McDermott made some comments on SAP’s stance on SaaS recently, and he got hammered by many SaaS “true believers,” in my view somewhat unfairly, I thought his views were more nuanced than his critics did, but would love to hear your take on this.

Thanks again and keep up the great work.

- Jon

Certifications could have a place in helping people get their foot in the door of the SAP market. Having started as an intern and mentoring several myself, there really isn’t much in the way of entry-level positions in the SAP world.

SAP should continue to offer their certifications, with careful consideration to quality and cost. But if the true goal and high level vision is to improve quality and accountability, I just don’t see it as accomplishing that goal on it’s own merit. It could certainly be part of the equation, but there needs to be more behind it. So where you would put recommendation as 2-3; I put it as #1. The good part is that we can agree to disagree because there is no right or wrong; when it comes to what you value more as a customer who is willing to pay for services, you have the right to choose what’s most important to you.

To truly improve on the high level situation, all these values should be considered in a balanced rating system which includes certifications, continued education, experience, and reputation. Then the customer’s can choose what they value the most based on their current needs.

On some projects, I need a very specific skill set (ie MDM) and someone to do some quick work. This is where I would put value behind certifications. On other projects I may need a problem solver or someone who is willing to challenge me and help on the overall design. This is where I would put more value behind reputation and experience.