The fast pace of change in today's world means we must understand and quickly respond to changes. Hence, in order to survive and be successful in today's VUCA world, we need to constantly scan for growth opportunities and be willing to learn new skills.

Working in software industry helps me to realise that with all the disruptions in the modern world, especially technology, ongoing skill acquisition is critical to persistent professional relevance. We shall always look for ways to stretch ourselves to get ahead.

Even though I have been dealing with cloud computing, especially Microsoft Azure, for more than 10 years in my career and study, I still would like to find out how well I compare with my peers instead of thinking that I'm already fine at this area. Hence, with that in mind, I focus on learning Microsoft Azure development related skills on Microsoft Learn during the holiday.

Make the Most of Our Limited Learning Time

So much to learn, so little time.

We all have very little time for learning outside of our work. Combine time we have for learning and the importance of the skills, we can get a simple 2x2 matrix with four quadrants.

2x2 matrix to help prioritizing skills to learn (Reference: Marc Zao-Sanders)

I don't have much time to keep my cloud computing knowledge relevant because nowadays I focus more on desktop application development. Hence, I decided to give myself a one-week break from work and schedule 6-7 hours each day for learning in the holiday.

In order to make sure we're investing our time wisely, we shall focus on learning what is needed. Unless we need the skill for our job or a future position, it's better not to spend time and money for training on that skill because learning is an investment and we shall figure out what the return will be. This is why I choose to learn more about developing cloud apps on Microsoft Azure because that has been what I'm doing at work in the past decade.

To better achieve my goals in self learning, I've also identified the right learning materials before I get started. Since I already have the experience of developing modern cloud applications early in my career, I choose to focus only on going through all the 43 relevant modules available on the Microsoft Learn.

Make Learning a Lifelong Habit

No matter which technology era we are in, the world will always belong to people who are always keeping themselves up to date. Hence, lifelong learning is a habit many of us would like to emulate.

Before we start our learning journey, we need to set realistic goals, i.e. goals that are attainable, because there are limits to what we can learn. In addition, as we discussed earlier, we need to ask ourselves how much time and energy we can give to our self learning. We have to understand that learning a skill takes extreme commitment, so unless we can't get very far on the journey of self learning if we don't plan it properly.

Learning is hard work but it also can be fun, especially when we are learning together with like-minded people. Don't try to learn alone, otherwise self learning can feel over-whelming. For example, besides learning from online tutorials, I also join local software development groups where members are mostly developers who love to share and learn from each other.

Azure Community Singapore, for all who are interested in cloud technology.

Finally, to improve our ability to learn, we also have to unlearn, i.e. choose an alternative mental model or paradigm. We should acknowledge that old mental model is not always relevant or effective. When we fail, we also should avoid defending ourselves and capture the lessons we've learned.

Certification and Exam

I'm now a Microsoft certified Azure Developer Associate after I passed their exam AZ-204 in November 2021.

The exam is not difficult but it's definitely not easy as well.

The exam tests not only our knowledge in developing cloud solutions with Azure services such as Azure Compute and Storage Account, but also our understanding of cloud security and Azure services troubleshooting.

Clearing all the relevant modules on Microsoft Learn does not guarantee that one will pass the exam easily. In fact, it's the skills and knowledge I gain from work and personal projects help me a lot in the exam, for example the service bus implementation that I learnt last year when I was building a POC for container trailer tracking system.

How Microsoft Learn helps is that it provides an opportunity for us to learn in a free sandbox environment. In addition, the learning materials on the platform are normally best practices to follow. Hence, by learning on Microsoft Learn, I realise some of the mistakes I've made in the past and things that I can improve, for example resource management with tags, RBAC access control, VNet setup, etc.

Notes taken when I was going through the learning materials on Microsoft Learn.

I use Notion to take notes. Notion is a great tool to keep our notes clean and organised. Taking notes helps me to do a last-minute quick revision.

Conclusion

In a fast-moving world, being able to learn new skills helps in our life. There are many ways to learn continuously in our life. Earning certificates by going through challenging exams is just one of the methods. You know what works, do more of it.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

References

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