Everything you need to know about Salesforce's new Strategy Designer Certification
5 min
Strategy design combines skills like experience design, business management, analytical thinking, and critical thinking. Through the process of acquiring a Strategy Designer Certification, you can prove mastery over these concepts, allowing you to more effectively navigate today’s ambiguous business landscape while building sustainable value into the future.
Certified strategy designers tend to have skill sets that are highly adaptable. Their end goal, in most cases, is to ensure that their company’s strategic vision is realized in its operations. To ensure that you have a strong grasp of the various skill sets that can be leveraged in a strategy design position, you should consider pursuing Salesforce’s new Strategy Designer Certification.
Before you begin the process of acquiring certification, it helps to learn more about the Salesforce Designer role and what it entails. Then you can start educating yourself about what it takes for a Salesforce professional to become a certified strategy designer.
What’s the new Strategy Designer Certification?
In 2021, Salesforce introduced the Salesforce Designer role alongside the Salesforce UX Designer Certification for Trailblazers who prioritize the creation of human-centric user experiences. This new credential was designed to fill the gap in their previous credential offerings, as many found that the softer, intangible aspects of developing and building on Salesforce were underrepresented in the platform’s certification catalog.
Now that this initial step into increasing Trailblazers’ skills and design capability has been taken, Salesforce has announced a new certification opportunity for professionals in this category. The Salesforce Strategy Designer Certification is a new program that is meant to validate a Trailblazer’s ability to create compelling user experience strategies using various design methods. Through such knowledge, they can promote valuable business outcomes through the Salesforce Platform.
A Salesforce Certified Strateggy Designer should realistically be prepared to create value for their organization by directing the production of systems-level solutions that are geared toward desirable user outcomes. This requires focusing on things that are important, rather than just prioritizing urgent needs. In doing so, the strategy designer can deliver results that combine tangible and intangible work processes.
Overall, becoming a Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer prepares you to be an essential contributor to the process of aligning stakeholders behind a strategic vision through leveraging of well-constructed, designed user experiences. This primarily creates value in the short term, but also offers an enduring advantage that encourages the growth of value over time.
How is strategy design different from user experience (UX) design?
Strategy design and user experience (UX) design are similar but inherently different in several ways. While UX designers focus on develop the look, feel, and behavior of a user experience, strategy designers look earlier in the process, framing various challenges in order to determine exactly what UX should be built. A Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer has a more holistic approach than a UX designer, as they are focused moreso on articulating user experiences that are desirable for customers, viable for businesses, and technically feasible.
While the two disciplines are not exactly the same, they do have some overlapping features. Therefore, it is possible for people in either position to collaborate effectively on specialized projects. By pairing up a UX designer with a Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer, companies can leverage each professional’s specialized skills while also benefiting from increased productivity when they combine their efforts.
Why it’s important
A majority of workers across the globe are unprepared to learn the digital skills that are essential in todays marketplace. The Salesforce Strategy Design Certification exists to help prepare designers and creatives for critical roles that must be filled. Getting this certification can also equip experienced designers to lead their organizations with purpose-oriented design foundations.
At a first glance, the Strategy Designer Certification materials can potentially leave you confused. The exam outline features several unique points that may not be familiar to the average Salesforce professional.
- Some of these key points include:
- Internal dynamics of the organization;
- Methods of co-creation;
- Framing the altitude and scope of a design project and;
- Creating challenge statements.
Fortunately, Salesforce is committed to guiding designers and technologists to the skill sets they must have to build equitable careers that are founded in their ability to incorporate effective design into core business processes, like leadership and product development. Through the Salesforce Strategy Designer Certification program, participants are shaped into leaders that have the knowledge and expertise needed to consider every stakeholder when developing organizations and their products.
Who is this certification for?
If you are interested in the Strategy Designer Certification but unsure if you are a good fit for the curriculum, don’t fret. There are no prerequisites that must be completed before you take the exam. Although, Salesforce recommends that you do acquire adequate relevant experience in the field before attempting the certification exam.
- Some key experience that may be necessary to fare well on the exam includes:
- 3 years of practical experience in strategy design or a similar role
- 2 years of experience using the Salesforce platform
- 2 years of experience in managing complex projects that require advanced consultative and facilitation skills
If you don’t have each of these boxes checked, the certification may still be suitable for you. Though, you must at the very least have specialized design skills to have a chance at passing the certification exam. If you need to wait to claim the certification, don’t stress! Upon developing your professional skills you can always double back and get this essential certification.
If you are considering this certification, here are some resources you can use to prepare:
Salesforce Strategy Design Career Trailmix
Prepare for your Strategy Designer Credential Trailmix
Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer Exam Outline
Whether you are a consultant looking to expand their knowledge base or a designer hoping to gain a better foothold in your industry, the Salesforce Certified Designer Exam will allow you to demonstrate your ability to utilize business knowledge and design expertise to produce advantageous outcomes.
Regardless of who you are and what your current role is, the Strategy Designer Exam offers undeniable value. It also offers professionals the chance to exhibit their knowledge, experience, and mastery of the following key areas:
Value Design (32%)
Value design is a process that involves driving business outcomes using designed experiences.
- The Salesforce Certified Strategy Design exam requires testees to display their ability to do all of the following upon being given a specific customer scenario:
- Frame the scope of design projects using an effectual challenge statement directed at a specific business objective that is designated to a user problem.
- Highlight the key metrics and signals that can be used to evaluate success.
- Identify how an organization’s internal dynamics may impact your ability to recommend a solution to the challenge statement.
- Assess the ways that external context for innovation can effect the organization’s overall strategy and vision.
- Defend your reasoning for strategic directives by providing specific rationale.
- Prioritize ethics and values for users and the suggested organization.
Artifacts (23%)
The artifacts portion of the exam covers the creation of tangible deliverables via the crafting and communication of strategy.
- Using a given business need and customer scenario, examiness must:
- Tie user needs into advanced Salesforce capabilities.
- Identify specific criteria for the feasibility, viability, and desirability of a user experience.
- Present the ideal methods of co-creation to be used with customers and other stakeholders.
Intangible Deliverables (26%)
Some deliverables are not tangible, therefore the Salesforce Certified Design exam requires examinees to display their ability to make seemingly “invisible” work more visible through results.
- They are provided with a scenario that involves evolving internal dynamics then are tasked with:
- Creating a strategy to nurture alignment.
- Identifying the key relationships needed to solve the challenge statement.
- Identifying the ideal presentation methods for communicating a specific vision.
- Using relevant tools for efficient cross-discipline collaboration.
Leveraging Adjacent Roles/Skills: 19%
The design and build process is complex and multifaceted.
- Therefore, the examinees must show their ability to apply an aligned vision within a given scenario. This involves:
- Developing an implementation roadmap that is accurate to the vision in each iteration.
- Determining the different business and technical processes that underlie the delivery of the vision into the solution.
- Facilitating productive collaboration within a disparate business scenario using technical deliverables produced by a design or build team.
- Determining the knowledge and skill needed to create a vision within a given scenario.
What does the Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer Exam look like?
The Salesforce Certified Strategy Designer Exam is unique, but is not too different from other exams featured in the Salesforce catalog.
- Here are some details about the exam:
- Content: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions
- Time allotted to complete the exam: 105 minutes
- Passing Score: 70% (42 Questions out of 60)
- Registration fee: USD 200 plus applicable taxes as required per local law
- Retake fee: USD 100 plus applicable taxes as required per local law
- Prerequisites: none
If you wish to study or otherwise prepare for the exam, here are some helpful resources you can depend on. Study and prepare links
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