The 5 Reasons AXP is FailingArchitect Candidates - No 4

The AXP is the Architectural Experience Program. This is NCARB’s system for helping you, the new design professional, document hours in areas that are important to gain competency in as an architect. As you work, you gain experience. And every hour of time that you work on a particular task that contributes to the competency of you as an architect, contributes to your experience you log that in a particular area.

I'm listing the top 5 reasons the AXP is failing architecture licensing candidate in that effort, and it's failing architecture firms too.

The AXP is failing architectural licensing candidates because the number of hours required for each area IS SO LARGE that it's very difficult for candidates to comprehend their progress.

It's discouraging for candidates to see that they've got so many 1000s of hours, literally 1000s of hours of time that they need to put in and document these hours that they don't sense progress. It's running a 1000 mile race. You don't focus on the whole race. You focus on one step at a time.

It's Kaizen.

You don't look at the big picture of what you have to do. You look at the smaller tasks of what's necessary to get each progressive step along the way. That's the failing of the AXP.

How it can be fixed?

Have smaller, achievable goals. Maybe you reach a certain threshold, and then you bump up and you've made some progress. The next threshold, bump it up, make some progress.

AXP doesn't do that, so that's the fourth reason that AXP is failing.

Architecture licensing candidates can make smaller goals of achievement along the way. Supervisors can help candidates by encouraging them to set goals along the way, achieve certain tasks and get the amount of hours needed for that task and then move on to something else.

This concept is actually supported by the way that projects are structured. We go in a sequential order of beginning to end, and the tasks can be ordered in that same way. So get this task done, put in this number of hours doing that task. And then when we move on, let's say, from planning to design, there's all those hours recording existing conditions and doing code, research and preparation for the design. When you get into the design stage, now, there's tasks for that.

So you accumulate a certain number of hours and then you move on, you set those targets, those goals.