In my summary post on TechEd EMEA 2008, IT Pro Week, I mentioned that I felt one of the most significant announcements is the addition of a SharePoint discipline to the Microsoft Certified Master and Certified Architect programs. That is now being borne out as the SharePoint blogoshpere and Twitterverse erupt with a debate on the nature of SharePoint "Masterhood".

At its root is the program's prerequisite of passing both the current Administration/IT Pro, as well as the Development-oriented, certification exams (in addition to significant field experience, which isn't under contest) before being considered for admission to the program.

Joel Oleson started by proposing that you could be a Master in either the Dev, IT Pro, or Design arenas, but it is unreasonable to expect the Master title to only apply to someone who is expert in all of those areas. Like his earlier comments regarding SharePoint Site Definitions, this proved to be a fairly contrarian view. Other major SharePointers to weigh-in have been Owen Allen, Jeremy Thake, Matt Groves, Andrew Woodward, and Spencer Harbar. Most of them fall into what is being called the "One Master to Rule Them All" camp (apologies to Tolkien), and I'm inclined to agree.

For many years, I have been commenting on just how big SharePoint is, and how many disciplines it takes to truly comprehend its abilities. Ranging from my very first blog post, where I said of the v2/2003 version:

SharePoint is a great product. Actually, it is several great products. This “split personality”, however, can be enough to drive normally rational users, administrators, and developers crazy. I'm here to help. Through this site, I hope to bring order to the chaos.

To the one post I carried over from the old server onto this one:

SharePoint is big. Really big. So big, in fact, that it is very hard, some might say impossible, for any one person to fully comprehend. Now, I wouldn't go quite that far, but I will say that many people approach SharePoint in much the same way as the blind men approached the elephant.

I won't repeat the whole Blind Men and the Elephant parable here (click the link above). The point is, most people have an area of specialty. They tend to approach SharePoint from that point of view, whether as a development platform, web application, content management system, BI aggregation portal, or whatever.

Notice in the quote that I said "I wouldn't go quite that far" when saying a single person cannot fully comprehend the beast that is SharePoint. That doesn't mean that I feel such people are common. Indeed, they will - of necessity - be quite rare. And these are the people at whom the Certified Master credential is targeted. I like to think I'm among them - certainly most of the people mentioned above would be.

Note that this also doesn't mean that people who don't fall into the "Master" category can't still be considered "experts". The metaphor I use for that is medicine. Doctors come in all kinds, from General Practitioners, to Neurologists, and any number of other specialties. Experts all - but not all of them can be "House".

Even among those who ultimately attempt and attain the Certified Master designation, you will certainly find some degree of specialization. Even with an understanding of multiple disciplines, it does not necessarily follow that you will regularly practice all of them to the same level. To that extent, Joel is correct. Some Masters will focus more on Infrastructure, while others may focus more on Design or Development.

But a true Master never loses sight of the big picture. He or She may delegate individual tasks to particular artisans or specialists. Within their spheres, these folks may even exceed the talents of the Master. Yet the Master knows that the leg is not the elephant. More than that, the Master keeps in mind that the elephant itself is not the whole herd.