The hottest new career path: DAP professional
The history of technological innovation can be told in terms of all the professions it created. Before there were computers, there were no IT Support professionals, but today, we can’t imagine life without them. Social Media Managers were just starting to emerge 15 years ago. Today, no one can deny the impact and value of social content on a brand, so this career path is here to stay.
According to the World Economic Forum, 85% of the jobs of 2030 don’t exist today.
We’re witnessing the same thing with Digital Adoption. New career paths are being created in front of our eyes — driven by the necessity to maximize investments in digital resources. Without qualified professionals who can strategize, plan, and build Digital Adoption solutions that make an impact, your Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) and initiatives won’t live up to their full potential. In fact, very shortly, WalkMe is once again hosting its annual event – Elevate 2022 – to celebrate DAP professionals and propel them to new heights.
So how do DAP Professionals develop and grow the skills required for a fruitful career? Never fear, WalkMe has your back with a new strategy for educational coursework designed just for you no matter what roles you play on your DAP team. (And you can start benefiting as early as October 26th if you attend Elevate 2022 in-person. Keep reading.)
Listen to successful DAP Professionals
We spent a lot of time listening to customers who run successful DAP teams to understand their ingredients for success. We set out to learn:
- Which DAP responsibilities are assigned to whom in your organization?
- Which DAP roles do you currently employ full-time vs. part-time?
- What type of operating model do you have in place? (Centralized, Decentralized, or Hybrid)
- How different are your DAP needs today than they were 3 years ago?
- What gaps do you see in your DAP team?
After gathering the data, it’s clear where we need to put our resources. We started developing a strategy for coursework enablement that covers the entire spectrum of DAP Professional responsibilities needed to birth a new DAP team or run a fully mature Center of Excellence (CoE) for Digital Adoption.
Start at the core
Phase one of our strategy is to enable the core roles of any DAP team or CoE, which are:
- DAP Program Lead — Runs the Digital Adoption program for their team, department, or company: creates the strategy, oversees the projects, and drives the operating model.
- DAP Project Lead — Owns DAP projects from start to finish: gathering requirements and managing scope, budget, schedule, risks, etc.
- DAP Builder — Creates DAP content to meet project objectives for specific platforms and applications, performs testing and troubleshooting, and provides support assistance.
These sets of responsibilities are the foundation of any successful DAP team, whether you’re brand new to DAP and have one or two people performing these roles part-time, or you have a CoE with a full-time staff. This is where we begin — developing coursework to enable these roles at multiple levels of expertise, from beginner to expert.
Show how to grow
In the next phases of the strategy, we’ll address other roles we know are vital to scaling a DAP team as you take on more complex projects and more departments get involved. These roles include:
- DAP Designer — Makes the content easy and even a pleasure to use and analyzes user behavior.
- DAP Data Analyst — Informs decisions and validates results using analytics; runs reports to enrich leadership comms by showing tangible impact and to inform operational roles about project success.
- DAP Champion — Raises awareness of and excites users about Digital Adoption, showcases benefits that align with team and company goals, and uses analytics to reinforce their storytelling.
- DAP Architect — Fits WalkMe into the company tech stack: creates the foundation to enable deployments, configures the DAP to comply with privacy and security requirements, and integrates data between WalkMe and other systems.
Join us at Elevate!
Be the first to the unveiling of this strategy at WalkMe Elevate. Join the keynote on October 25, in-person or via live-stream, to hear some exciting announcements about enablement resources coming to DAP Professionals everywhere, including the new coursework, credentials, and certifications.
And you can join us in San Francisco October 26–27 to immediately start your DAP Professional journey. We’ll be offering attendees their choice of one of three certifications that they can earn on-site and add to their LinkedIn profile before flying home. These brand new beginner level certifications will enable the core roles mentioned above (DAP Builder, DAP Project Lead, DAP Program Lead), and offer a sneak peek into what’s in store for further learning opportunities.
Register for Elevate! Join us virtually on October 25 or in-person from October 25–27 in San Francisco.