At a community event I was asked about Microsoft certifications, why so many have been retired, what is the new direction Microsoft are taking and to be honest, I did not have any good answers to hand or a reference site to point people to.
A Microsoft employee pointed me to Microsoft Learn – which at first glance, has a whole load of really good material. But what it also has is the link to, not only learning paths but also the new certifications structure. The Microsoft Certifications page breaks down accreditation paths by role and level of expertise and is incredibly useful;
Before I tell you more, I’m going to just say no learning system or site is perfect, so don’t shoot me down. If there are features of MS Learn that you are not fond of, I respect that.
Back at Microsoft Learn we found a whole wealth of training material to suit any user, technician or enthusiast. The Site returned for example 35 results when filtering for Business User and Microsoft 365.
Each course has a set of content and is, for the majority of the content, all short videos around the topic of choice making it extremely consumable for every user.
In addition there is an X-box’esque level of XP to be earned from your activities and the ability to level up;
Your XP, Learning Paths and progress are tracked as well as Badges, trophies and all manner of gamification elements.
Now for me, I was just looking to find the certifications and the link through did the trick for me. When I started showing MS Learn to clients, showing how they could empower their champions and provide learning content to those who wanted to find out more, I was really pleased with the fact that learners seemed more likely to engage, given the reward interface.
Obviously not all this content is for everyone and for most job roles AI and bots are not part of the workload, but with more engagement will come more content, so I thought I’d say to those who have not found, looked or revisited recently – its better than you think. Have a look and see if you can learn something new and level up (I’m definitely not a competitive person, I don’t know what you mean!)
Thanks for listening – don’t forget to leave comments below or get in touch with me directly if you’d like to chat about the content posted here or anything to do with the Power Platform – I’m a Business Applications speaker and evangelist with a clear focus on delivering real business value from technology. I speak at least once a month so please find me at an event and #LetsGetCoffee
