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Technical education as microjourneys: Using the Pega Express™ delivery approach to help prepare for Pega certifications

Robert Calton, 7 minute read

The journey to become a Pega Certified professional may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

The basic principles that we use as part of the Pega Express Delivery Approach can also be applied to improve your learning. By thinking of your learning journey with Pega in terms of microjourneys, minimum lovable products, and personas you will be able to understand concepts more deeply, earn your certifications faster, and provide more value to the organizations you serve.
 

Learning microjourneys

Just like complex business processes can be separated into microjourneys using the Pega Express Delivery Approach, you can break apart complex learning processes as you prepare for certification. By thinking of your certification journey as series of microjourneys, not only will your progress seem more manageable, but you will also improve knowledge retention and develop more technical ability.

A learning microjourney relates to a highly specific technical task that is connected to larger process. For example, if a business user will be adding data to a form, the related learning microjourney will cover how to configure a view. This is part of the complete learning journey which covers how to build all of the necessary functionality to enable adding form data.

In Pega Academy, we represent learning microjourneys as topics which exist in modules. In each topic, you encounter a specific part of a more complex process. It is helpful to think about topics as microjourneys here because, like microjourneys, they build on each other.

Here’s a helpful tip: At the end of each topic, try and think about how it relates to your prior knowledge and to other skills that you have built over the course of the Pega Academy mission. Focus on small, individual tasks, like configuring a view, and see how they connect to other ones. You will soon begin to build a networked understanding of how these learning microjourneys relate to each other. Actively making these connections as you go will not only better prepare you to succeed in certification examinations, but more importantly, it will enable you to complete tasks more rapidly and successfully with Pega products.
 

Minimum Lovable Learning Products

In terms of Pega project delivery, a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) is the first release of a product that gives the customer something they would love with the least amount of effort. But the concept is helpful from the learning perspective as well. For learners, a minimum lovable learning product could be thought of as the “simplest solution” that could be configured which would enable you to demonstrate that you have mastered a learning microjourney.

As you learn in Pega Academy, you are asked to perform tasks using Pega Platform and other Pega products like Customer Decision Hub without much step-by-step instruction. Think of this like a game and try to come up with the simplest way to accomplish each task or fulfill the specifications. Overthinking can lead to decision paralysis and quite often complicates a simple solution. When considering configuration options in your certification exam, consider what may be the simplest and least-obtrusive solution to address the situation presented to you.
 

Learn with empathy

Another useful strategy as you complete Pega Academy missions is to reflect on the personas who would use the end result of your configurations and how they would interact with it. Try to imagine the end user as you make decisions in your builds and configurations. You can “decenter” yourself and become, for a moment, the intended end user.

For example, when you’re configuring a view, would you as a service agent want an overly complicated interface that presents several options at once? What if you were the same agent doing field work with your mobile device? How would this shift in channel change both your work and application design? What interface changes would be needed? What data is needed for the agent to accomplish their goal? De-centering will help further contextualize your decisions, strengthen your Design Thinking, and grant a valuable perspective for future work with Pega products.

It is also helpful to think about your certification like a kind of product. Who are you completing your certification for? As a requirement of your current or prospective employer? In order to be more effective in your team? Think of all of the people who have an interest in your certification as personas in the same way as you think about the personas that consume a Pega app. Thinking about the value that your certification will have, not just for you, but for everyone else who will be positively impacted will not only increase your motivation to finish, but also help you to understand concepts more deeply because you are considering them from multiple perspectives.

 

By leveraging elements of Pega Express Methodology Delivery Approach in your journey to become a Pega Certified professional, you can bolster success in your certification exams. Be mindful at each step and consider how what you’re doing now builds on what you’ve learned before and contributes to more complex concepts and abilities. Reflect on what each step might mean for an end user or business. And think about how you could better engage stakeholders across multiple channels by momentarily imagining yourself as them.

To begin or continue your learning journey with Pega, visit Pega Academy. Do you have any other tips for successfully completing Pega Certifications and Pega Academy courses? Let me know on Collaboration Center.

 

 

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About the Author

Robert Calton is a senior curriculum developer at Pegasystems 

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