You’ve probably heard the expression, “fake it til you make it”, right?

At a recent company Town Hall, Rulesware CEO Anthony Lee said he’s not a fan of that mentality. “We don’t want our people faking anything. We’re proud to be highly trained knowledgeable experts when it comes to Pega. We do one thing–Pega–and we do it extremely well.”

That’s where our extensive program of Pega training and development comes in. Rulesware team members each have an individual career coach, and each completes rigorous courses and tough exams in order to gain badges and get certified in various aspects of Pega software that relate to their day-to-day work.

Pega Academy, Reimagined

In May 2020, Pega made significant changes to their Pega Academy. Training is shorter, modular, and geared toward efficient learning. Within this new system, learners can focus on specific modules that apply to their current projects. Pega calls this agile educational strategy “just in time” learning.

Pega’s reimagined courseware is geared to prioritize current, up-to-the-minute knowledge. And since Pega rolls new software out rapidly, they’ve gamified their training systems to encourage developers to keep up.

“You don’t even have to sign up for a full course anymore,” says Molly Eddington, our Director of Practice Management. “Over time, you can achieve badges just by putting in time and training as you go.”

At Rulesware, we’re thrilled about the new changes. More agile training means opportunity to develop even more expertise that we can share with clients.

Individual Training Paths

For our US teams at Rulesware, all initial Pega Academy training is completed in a self-study system. However, in El Salvador and Mexico, training occurs in what we call “new hire waves,” where four to eight people work their way through the course in a supported self-study environment. These new hires spend three weeks focusing on that training as a group, with practice leaders and trainers taking them through the course and supporting their learning.

How Our Team Members Benefit

For employees, gaining Pega certifications boosts their career trajectory. Rulesware offers Training Time Off (TTO) each year, yet many employees choose to save that time for conferences or external training, and dedicate themselves to completing their Pega certifications in evenings and weekends. It’s hard work, but everyone agrees it’s worth it. And the new Pega academy breaks things down into smaller sized bites.

“Plenty of people struggle with learning—I know I do,” notes David McPhail, Development Practice Lead at Rulesware.

“But with modular training through Pega Academy, employees can incorporate digestible training time into their day-to-day lives, rather than face a massive undertaking all at once.”

Certification = Expertise

At Rulesware, we live by six core values, one of which is expertise. Expertise is what sets us apart. We believe deeply in honing our skills to an expert level, through training, mentorship, and certification.

We track our certifications on a quarterly basis and as of July 10, 2020, we had the following Pega certifications:

98 – System Architect Certification
33 – Senior System Architect Certification
4 – Lead System Architect Certification
29 – Business Architect Certification
4 – Marketing Consultant Certification
9 – Decisioning Consultant Certification
2 – Data Scientist Certification
2 – Robotics Certification

We’ve got quite the team of experts! The majority of our team hold a Pega Certification, with the following percentages of employees holding one or more certification, broken down by practice:

Development: 93%
QA: 59%
BA: 93%
Delivery: 80%

We’re fiercely proud of our people and their commitment to lifelong learning.