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Set a training and upskilling strategy for makers

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It's important to think about your upskilling strategy for makers—what will be available for new, intermediate, and advanced makers to ensure they are able to learn constantly and can get powered up.

Many training resources are available, from the training days already mentioned to online resources such as forums, documentation, and e-learning. Community events such as user groups, conferences, and happy hours help makers connect and share ideas outside your organization with like-minded people.

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Grow your pool of talented people

Growing your pool of talented people should be front and center at this point in your journey. You will have observed that the citizen developers of yesterday are becoming the technologists of tomorrow. As their appetite to learn grows, they'll become the leaders and trainers of your future citizen developers. Some might go on to specialize in specific areas on Power Apps, learning excellent technical skills that enable more advanced problem solving across your organization. Across the whole team, talent gaps need to be identified and filled. Formal training programs should be implemented. You need to identify what skills are required to solve the challenges your organization faces.

Look for people with skills and strengths in the following roles:

  • Citizen developers: Continue to bring their day-to-day experience to how their job is done; when provided the right tools and training, can create apps to drive value.

  • Pro developers: Will design advanced interfaces using Power Apps componenet framework in addition to building complex relationships or integrations with other applications, when the out-of-the-box limits have been reached, and the app needs to be extended.

  • Trainers: Are necessary to train others on how to use the apps that are built and made available across the organization, in addition to providing training on how to build apps.

  • Change management owner: Critical for organization-wide adoption of changes to software, systems, and procedures that impact people.

  • Program owners: Will own multiple projects; they'll have a strategic view of organizational priorities and will focus on outcomes and engagement of everyone involved in app making.

  • Product owners: Will own specific apps; they'll be focused on user experiences that delight and apps that create tangible values for all stakeholders.

  • Architects: Will understand the strategy that the organization wants to achieve and will use the best technology to achieve organizational outcomes. They'll understand the big picture from a technology perspective and will provide guidance and technical leadership.

  • QA and testing: Need to be part of scaling app creation; quality and reliability will be expected.

  • IT pros and admins: Lead the governance, compliance, and supportability of apps across the organization.

Sponsorship

As you start involving more people from across your organization, you'll need to get buy-in from various stakeholders.

Citizen developers will come from all parts of your organization and, traditionally, won't sit in IT. Because these people will have "day jobs," they'll need manager buy-in to set aside time to learn about Microsoft Power Platform. Making digital transformation a core objective and goal of your company is an effective way to ensure makers of all parts of the organization are able to dedicate time to learning about Microsoft Power Platform and attending internal and external training events.

An effective way to gain buy-in is to highlight the positive impact the project can have for different stakeholders.

Creating an innovation-friendly culture can take time. It's important to address people's concerns about how it might affect their part of the organization, both in the short term and the long run.