• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

Collaborating for a Successful Dynamics 365 Project

August 26, 2018   Microsoft Dynamics CRM
achievement agreement arms 1068523 300x225 Collaborating for a Successful Dynamics 365 Project

In order for a Microsoft Dynamics 365 project to succeed, it is critical to get input early and often from the key stakeholders. Oftentimes projects are driven from either the business or the IT side of a company. However, the most successful projects have these two sides of the business working together from the start to the completion of the project.

Why don’t companies always have IT and business working side by side? If you take some time to think about this question, it seems a bit rhetorical. Of course, both teams need to provide input based on their unique knowledge bases – however, this often isn’t the case.

Siloed Projects

The desire to conduct projects in a siloed manner can stem from distrust. If teams are meant to work together, the individuals need to share ideas and to trust each other. Some of the mistrust can be a byproduct of failed past projects that were not worked on in tandem. When the business conducts a project without sufficient input from IT, things can be missed.

Here are some examples:

  • Not taking into account the amount of data that needs to be transferred from a legacy system.
  • Not formulating a plan for the data transfer from a legacy system.
  • Not accounting for any integrations with other systems.
  • Security planning.
  • Testing plans.
  • Go Live planning input.
  • Incomplete knowledge regarding IT enterprise planning.

When IT runs a project without significant input from the business, there are also risks:

  • The use cases for Dynamics 365 development are not fully realized as the IT team members don’t use Dynamics 365 in the same way the business does.
  • The IT team may not understand the pain points the Business is trying to address with the build/upgrade.
  • How will success for the project be measured?
  • It is important to understand the strategic vision when implementing the application – the business may own this knowledge.
  • Incomplete knowledge of how training should be delivered.
  • How to win at successful user adoption.

It is not uncommon for Dynamics 365 projects to fail when a business unit tries to lead the project in a siloed fashion. It can be challenging for companies to move to a cooperative development between IT and the Business, but the benefits outweigh the negatives in so many ways. Some of the benefits include: gaining trust between the two areas of the business, less meeting time, less rework and the higher likelihood of creating a product that functions as both groups require.

Benefits to Collaboration

Let’s expand on how having the two groups work on the deliverable can be beneficial. By working together on a project or initiative, the teams can learn to work together. Both groups are stereotypically very different. Oftentimes if you asked the business, they would stereotype IT as moving very slow and methodically and not understanding the needs of the business. If you asked IT, they might say the Business can be very reactive and lacks an understanding of what needs to be done to the IT infrastructure to get what they need built. If the two groups are encouraged and allowed to work together, they can learn about each group’s needs and requirements.

When these teams better understand each other’s requirements, this can promote a better working relationship in the long run. The teams can learn the facts behind the stereotypes to hopefully promote a more productive and successful working environment. It can lead to a solid partnership with shared goals, metrics, and deep collaboration.

Collaborating for a Successful Project

It is imperative for the two groups to start working together on the vision for the Dynamics 365 build from the inception, and all team roles should be represented. For instance, it is tempting to try to save on budget and try to roll in certain team members later in the project such as the quality assurance (QA) and training resources. This can backfire and the cadence of the project is affected when the project has to pause to catch up the late joiners.

Another very important requirement is to get input from the business users that will use Dynamics 365 on a daily basis. The team needs to understand what their roles are and how they will use Dynamics 365. This will allow the team to capture all use cases and to provide innovative input. Consultants need to understand the business in order to be consultative. They also need to understand the vision for the future. This helps them to create a backlog and to help guide the project through the first phase. If we tried to build a system that is perfect from the start, we would never get to a state to release the build.

Saving Time with Collaboration

Let’s take some time to talk about the possible time savings by having a collaborative project team. When demos are presented to the entire team, all members can give input and a discussion can occur. Team members can hear pros and cons from both teams and better understand the direction the team chooses to follow. Instead of showing the build to IT and then to the business – it is done at the same time, which allows for decisions to actually be made sooner. The stakeholder(s) in the project can serve as a “tie-breaker” if there are decisions that need to be made.

Agile Methodology

When we talk about a “demo”, we are assuming that the project is following an agile methodology. Agile development definitely has pros and cons. Not all companies can or want to adopt this methodology as it can sometimes increase costs due to the need for more meetings. That said, agile development does allow the project team to see progress and to provide input through each of the development stages. So if the project is headed in a direction that the company did not intend, it can be righted before the project is done. Of course, the stakeholders need to remain engaged for the entire process for this to occur.

Improved Transparency

By having a collaborative team with high stakeholder involvement, there is better transparency for the project. If the project gets behind in development, it is visible right away to the stakeholders. This was the stakeholders can provide input on feature prioritizations. When it comes time to prioritize the backlog, they have the knowledge and background to do this, as they have been involved in the project from the start. For example, if there is a change in business needs for the company, the stakeholders can re-prioritize what the team works on.

In the end, a collaborative team with the right members can produce a Dynamics 365 environment that is useful to the company. Both IT and the Business have knowledge of how it was developed and why. They will also understand what is in the backlog for the next phase, and when it is time to start on the next phase, they can move forward. The team will be accustomed to working together and can successfully start another phase of the project.

Need help on your next Dynamics 365 project? From implementation to support to training – we can help! Contact us today.

Happy Dynamics 365’ing!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

PowerObjects- Bringing Focus to Dynamics CRM

Collaborating, Dynamics, project, Successful
  • Recent Posts

    • Bad Excuses
    • Understanding CRM Features-Better Customer Engagement
    • AI Weekly: Continual learning offers a path toward more humanlike AI
    • The Easier Way For Banks To Handle Data Security While Working Remotely
    • 3 Ways Data Virtualization is Evolving to Meet Market Demands
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited