Microsoft

Cloud Skills Challenge

Production

Strategy

Analytics

UI/UX

Development

Deeper engagement through gamified skilling

Catalysis developed the Cloud Skills Challenge platform to support Microsoft's mission of expanding knowledge and promoting the adoption of Microsoft Cloud services. The Cloud Skills Challenge (CSC) works seamlessly with Microsoft Learn, Microsoft’s free global destination for learning and skilling, to provide a gamified experience to help participants develop their skills in Microsoft Cloud technologies. Ideal for teams and individuals looking to build their knowledge, CSC also delivers a custom leaderboard for participants to join in a little friendly competition. Challenges are run globally across experienced professionals, people new in their careers, and students aiming to develop their skills through Microsoft cloud technologies. Developed in partnership with the Engineering team behind Microsoft Learn, the Cloud Skills Challenge debuted on a large scale at Microsoft Build 2020, where it witnessed immediate success. Since that time, CSC has been spotlighted at multiple Microsoft 1st-party events and used by many organizations to drive technical proficiency within their companies.

Building and evolving the CSC Platform

CSC was architected to be easily customized to showcase specific topics or to be used at major events, including Microsoft Build, Ignite, and roadshow events. More recently, the AI Skills Challenge drove a massive number of registrations and content completion across four AI-themed challenges, in four supported locales. Following are a few highlights of our work in developing and evolving this long-running, successful program:

We developed a strategy and operations plan to evolve the CSC pilot into a global platform. This was achieved by stakeholder consultations and collaborative team meetings to gain valuable insights and define functional possibilities for the platform.
We partnered with the Microsoft Learn engineering team to enhance registration and integrate challenge components into the Microsoft Learn profile, introducing a range of new features designed to accommodate a global audience.
The Catalysis R&I team instrumented the platform to comprehensively analyze traffic patterns and engagement funnels, utilizing segmentation by geography and topic, and then used this data to determine what was effective and what wasn’t to inform our platform optimization plans. This is all displayed through an easy-to-consume Power BI dashboard.
We worked in close collaboration with the engineering and marketing teams to introduce a toolset that empowers all Microsoft employees to create their own challenges in support of events and customer accounts.
We collaborated with the marketing teams to curate a comprehensive digital marketing kit to champion the content and benefits of unique challenges, especially for major events. Leveraging various communication channels, we effectively promoted the challenges through compelling videos, social media posts, informative blog posts, targeted email campaigns, interactive trivia, and prominent in-property banners.
In our efforts to continually enhance CSC, Catalysis uses a systematic approach that integrates modern research, user feedback loops, and evolving business requirements to foster the expansion and extension of the platform.

The Cloud Skills Challenge exemplifies Catalysis' commitment to client success by demonstrating our expertise in campaign architecture, software engineering, and program management, emphasizing innovation and excellence.