Are Microsoft Certifications Causing Projects to Fail? with Julie Yack and Julian Sharp – YouTube
#85. Join me with Julie Yack and Julian Sharp as we discuss my question, “Are Microsoft certifications causing projects to fail?” Julie Yack is a founder and the chief operations officer at Colorado Technology Consultants. She’s an author, a trainer, a solution architect, and an MVP. Julian Sharp is the founder of Ready 365. He recently received an MVP award and is best known as a prolific Microsoft trainer. Over...
I’m Beginning to Hate Scrum – YouTube
#135. Remy is starting to hate Scrum. He thinks we should use Kanban. And get rid of Product Owners. It’s a shame, then, that Remy doesn’t understand Scrum. And doesn’t want to understand Scrum. Don’t be like Remy. Resources • Kanban Guide (https://kanban.university/kanban-guide/) on Kanban University • Professional Scrum with Kanban (https://www.scrum.org/courses/professional-scrum-with-kanban-training)...
Is Power Fx really low code? with Rishona Elijah – YouTube
#134. Today’s guest is Rishona Elijah, a Microsoft MVP (Business Applications) and Microsoft Certified Trainer who works as a Power Platform Trainer and Evangelist at Barhead Solutions in Sydney, Australia. She spends most of her time running training sessions and delivering events around Power Platform to business users to show them what they can achieve with this technology. In this episode, Rishona shares how she got started in...
Power Platform Governance Possibilities with Michael Roth – YouTube
#133. Today’s guest is Michael Roth, a Power Platform consultant with Avanade who specializes in governance. In this episode, Michael walks us through how he keeps business apps amazing by working on only the fun stuff, i.e., governance and licensing, and understanding how users experience tech, specifically Power Platform. Michael also highlights the importance of governance and shares with us some of the biggest mistakes he sees...
Using Figma to design business apps with Andrew Ly – YouTube
132. Today’s guest is Andrew Ly, a Microsoft Business Applications Solutioning Lead at IBM Consulting in Australia. Andrew shares his 22 years of experience in the Microsoft space, including the type of work he does and the clients he works with. Andrew also gives his two cents on the low-code, no-code approach and talks about the demand of in a day trainings like App-in-a-Day sessions, Figma, and Power Platform applications. Show...
Deploying Dynamics 365 Field Service with Magnus Sørensen – YouTube
131. Today’s guest is Magnus Gether Sørensen, a Dynamics 365 Field Service expert at Delegate in Denmark. Magnus shares with us some of the Field Service projects he has worked on, as well as the interesting challenges that his customers have encountered using the application. Plus, Magnus talks about what’s new and next for Field Service and gives a few tips for teams implementing the application. Episode Highlights • [0:30]...
Sprint 1 is done! – YouTube
#130. Sprint 1 is a magical, wonderful, beautiful thing. Find out how my messy, unstructured and un-estimated sprint 1 unfurled on a recent project to build a Power Platform app for a mid-size Microsoft customer in financial services. In-person conferences I didn’t attend: • Power Platform Conference (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/mppc-2022/) • Nordic Summit (https://nordicsummit.info/) • South Coast Summit...
Estimating Requirements for Your Microsoft Business App – YouTube
129. Learn how to use story point estimation to estimate the relative size of your Dynamics 365 or Power Platform application’s requirements. You’ll also learn: • How to slice user stories into the right size for estimation and development • How to decide on a standard user story for comparing other stories against when estimating • How to use affinity estimation or planning poker to estimate the relative size of user...
Using Story Points to Estimate Power Platform and Dynamics 365 Apps – YouTube
128. My wife, Natascha, is a faster trail runner than I am. Find out why estimating trail runs in units of time leads to misaligned expectations about how long it’ll take for us to run the same trail together. You’ll also learn: • What story points are • Three factors affecting the size of a requirement • How to account for Hick’s Law and Weber’s Law when choosing an estimation scale • The two estimation...
Why Estimate Business Apps At All? – YouTube
127. Do you really have to estimate the effort of building the Dynamics 365 or Power Platform apps you’ve been asked to build? If you work for a Microsoft partner, you probably do — unless you work for a customer who doesn’t care how much it costs or how long it takes. Find out how I approach estimation: • How much and how long? • Why estimates are notoriously inaccurate • Estimating time doesn’t work •...
Advanced Estimating Q&A – YouTube
126. Thanks for all your questions about estimating business applications. In this episode, I tackle four tricky situations when it comes to estimating Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications. • Should we re-estimate items in our backlog after we’re done because they were easier or harder than originally expected? — Tanika • If we don’t complete a story by the end of the sprint, should we re-estimate how much work is remaining...
Documenting Your Agile Applications – YouTube
#124. When you’re using an agile approach, like Scrum, how and when should you document your Dynamics 365 or Power Platform applications? After all, the Agile Manifesto says, “We value working software over comprehensive documentation”, right? Before projects start, my teams document requirements in a product backlog, visualise the backlog in a user story map, and discuss the project during a solution blueprint...
Sprint Goals for Microsoft Business Apps – YouTube
#123. Learn how to use sprint goals to communicate to your stakeholders what your team has committed to building this sprint. If you can write your sprint goal in the subject line of the sprint review invitation to your stakeholders, and they stampede to accept your invite and beat down the door at sprint review, that’s a great sprint goal. This episode includes examples of sprint goals for Dynamics 365 and Power Apps projects...
Can You Build an App Without a Product Owner? – YouTube
122. Ethan is a scrum master for a Power Platform team and his team is trying to build an app but the customer’s product owner hasn’t shown up yet! What should he do? If your team’s product owner is missing in action, in this episode you’ll learn how to prevent this situation from happening, what to do to recover, and what could happen if you don’t. Support the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/amazingapps)...
Power Platform governance at a global scale with Rene Modery – YouTube
121. What’s it like trying to manage 10 Microsoft 365 tenants with hundreds of environments, apps and citizen developers. Rene Modery, Power Platform Technical Lead shares his journey at global advertising company, WPP. • Managing ten Microsoft 365 tenants for a global company with hundreds of subsidiaries. • Power Platform environment policies and other guard rails to help makers. • How do you know what apps have already been...
Defining requirements for complex Power Platform apps with Hamish Sheild – YouTube
120. Hamish Sheild describes his five step Solution Mapping framework for using design thinking principles to define the requirements for complex Power Platform applications. • Hamish has discovered Outlook’s Board View and Neil is evaluating Motion for improving productivity. • AppRising’s Solution Mapping Framework • What is a complex application? • Observing users in their environment • Customer journey mapping •...
Is Pre-Sales the Key to Power Platform Success? with Craig McGeough – YouTube
119. What’s the role of pre-sales in setting up Microsoft customers and partners for successful Dynamics 365 and Power Platform projects? Today’s guest is Craig McGeough, Power Platform Pre-Sales Consultant at Incremental Group. Make sure you catch Craig’s session, More than “selling the dream”! Why Pre-Sales is the key to Power Platform success, at Scottish Summit on Friday, 9 June 2022. Register for...
Power Pages and beyond with Ulrikke Akerbæk – YouTube
118. Ulrikke Akerbæk joins to discuss what’s new with Power Pages (still called Power Apps Portals when we recorded this episode under NDA!). Discover some of the goodies Microsoft has been releasing for professional developers Power Pages and which portal template Ulrikke uses for almost every portals project. Announcing the preview of Microsoft Power Pages...
Answer These Five Questions Before You Build Anything with Chike Eduputa – YouTube
117. Chike Eduputa challenges citizen developers (and professional developers) to ask themselves five critical questions before building their next Power Platform or Dynamics 365 app. Chike Eduputa is a senior manager at Capgemini Invent in London where he specialises in digital strategy and transformation. He’s presenting at Scottish Summit on 9 June with the topic “Build what matters: critical metrics for citizen...
Six challenges of enterprise Dynamics 365 projects with Andrew Bibby and Dani Kahil – YouTube
#116. Dani Kahil interviews Andrew Bibby about a pivotal, multi-year Dynamics 365 business transformation project in financial services. Dani Kahil and Andrew Bibby are both Microsoft Business Applications MVPs. Dani is an independent consultant and online trainer specialising in requirements analysis and solution envisioning. Andrew Bibby is a founder of Proximo 3, a Microsoft training and advisory partner based in the UK. Dani and...
Application Eggs and Change Chickens with Angeliki Patsiavou – YouTube
#115. Angeliki Patsiavou is on a mission to help Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform application development teams introduce professional change managers to their projects from inception instead of deferring it until near the end. Angeliki is a senior consultant at Avanade, specialising in change management, and has a background as a change manager at HSBC and a digital marketer. Join us as we highlight her upcoming presentation...
Personalise Your Customer Experience with Dynamics 365 with Guro Faller and Tricia Sinclair – YouTube
#114. I’m joined by Microsoft MVPs Guro Faller and Tricia Sinclair. Guro and Tricia are presenting at Scottish Summit in Glasgow in June. Their presentation is “Personalize Your Customer Experience with Dynamics 365”. It’s going to be a showcase of the art of the possible with Dynamics 365 Marketing, Customer Insights, and Omni-channel for Customer Service. Guests Tricia Sinclair is a customer service lead at...
From the Basement to the Cloud with Vivian Voss – YouTube
#113. Vivian Voss joins me to discuss her upcoming Scottish Summit session, From the Basement to the Cloud – Your Journey from CRM on-premises to Dynamics 365 CE. Register today for Scottish Summit (https://scottishsummit.com/?page_id=5022) . Congratulations to Yacob Shenkute from Power Platform School (https://powerplatformschool.com/) for achieving his Scrum.org PSM1 certification...
Power Platform at the heart of Scotland’s new recycling scheme – YouTube
#112. Dani Kahil interviews Paddy Byrne about the Power Platform’s role in enabling Scotland’s new recycling scheme for single-use drinking containers. Scots people are famous for being careful with their money so I imagine any program to pay them for recycling containers was always going to be a big hit. Learn about Paddy’s Power Platform team: • Meeting public-sector’s accessibility and security requirements...
Start Here: How to Build Amazing Apps – YouTube
#111. Start here to learn why, when and how to use an agile approach to build Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications. In this episode, you’ll learn: • Why I use an agile approach building Dynamics 365 and Power App • When an agile approach is suitable and when it’s not • The benefits that Microsoft customers and partners experience using an agile approach • What agile actually means, the history of agile software...
Enterprise CRM with scaled Scrum at RACQ – YouTube
#109. In this special episode, I’m interviewed by Dani Kahil about my experience delivering an enterprise CRM project at RACQ (https://racq.com.au) (the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland). RACQ is a membership organisation serving two million people in Queensland with roadside assistance, insurance and banking services. In 2018, they set out to replace two legacy systems with Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Apttus and I had...
Behind the scenes of Amazing Applications – YouTube
108. If you’re considering starting a Dynamics 365 or Power Platform podcast in 2022, or just wonder what’s involved in producing a podcast episode, join me for a behind the scenes look at my four step episode production process. If you have any questions about starting a business apps podcast, I’d love to do my best to help. Email me at amazingapps@customery.com (mailto:amazingapps@customery.com) . Resources Some of...
Blended teams: customer and partner co-development – YouTube
#107. What would you do if you ran a Microsoft partner business and your customer wanted to stack your scrum their with their developers? This is the story of Selina who runs Gotham Heroes. Her customer, Bruce at Gotham Orphanages, wants Selina to include a couple of the orphanage’s developers onto the team. But the developers don’t have any experience with Dynamics 365 or Power Platform. And Selina’s team are...
Product Backlog Refinement: Who’s Involved? (And Why!) – YouTube
#106. You and the Microsoft Business Apps product owner are on Teams going through the product backlog. You two are working on it together because that’s how it has always been done. And yet, when you look back at the last few sprints, you realize that is not getting the desired results. It’s not your fault; it’s a systemic problem. The problem is that it is incredibly common for only one stakeholder — the product owner —...
How did you get scrum master training? – YouTube
#105. Dan Foster, a senior consultant and solutions architect at CRM Dynamics, asks, “Have you found much benefit from your being a scrum master? If so, how did you get that training?” I’ve taken the Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster training and certification and the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master training and certification. Find out which one I recommend for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform professionals and...
Should You Assign Stories to Developers in Sprint Planning? – YouTube
#104. Should we assign items to a developer during sprint planning? Some of my scrum teams building Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications assign sprint backlog items to a named developer during the sprint planning event. Is that a good idea or not? That’s the question we’re going to be answering in this episode of Amazing Applications. Resources • “The New New Product Development Game”, Harvard Business Review...
Agile Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations with Paul Heisterkamp – YouTube
#86. Join me with Paul Heisterkamp, a Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations solution architect and developer at GWS in Germany. Paul shares with us his story of a multi-country Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations project for an international automotive parts supplier. Our discussion covers: • Phasing long-term international enterprise projects. • Adopting an agile approach to ERP. • Dealing with the challenges of remote working. • How...
Adopting the Power Platform with Brendan Eger, Partners in Health – YouTube
#88. Join me with Brendan Eger, an Associate Director of Information Systems and Analytics at Partners In Health in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Brendan’s story is a fascinating journey of a small, bootstrapped team adopting the Power Platform. Our discussion covers: • Knowledge sharing within teams – invest in team members in a semi-formal structured environment, sharing what they’ve just learned with...
Power Apps for 100,000 users with Mandar Zope, Slalom Consulting – YouTube
#87. Join me with Mandar Zope, a principal consultant at Slalom Consulting from Seattle. Mandar has been busy building business applications that are being used by a hundred thousand users at a global oil and gas company. Our discussion covers: • The user adoption approach used to train and communicate with thousands or tens of thousands of users at a time, using Power Apps. • Building data import automation using Power Automate. •...
A Power Apps Portal for 1 Million Users in 100 hours with Mohammed Mohsin Khalid, Imperium Dynamics – YouTube
#89. Join me with Mohammad Mohsin Khalid. And he’s the founder, CEO and chief architect at Imperium Dynamics. He and his team built a Power Portal to support a million constituents booking their COVID test appointments, and they did it in less than 100 hours. Our discussion covers: • The physical logistics of drive-up COVID testing for thousands of people. • Why custom scheduling was used instead of the inbuilt scheduling...
Building a CRM App for Financial Advisors with Stephen Handley, Fin365 – YouTube
#90. Join me with Stephen Handley,founder, CEO and chief architect at Fin365, an application development business serving financial services professionals in Australia. Fin365 was born out of need for better data management practice management platform that Stephen identified in his own financial planning business. Our discussion covers: • How Stephen’s background of being a software developer and a financial adviser could be...
Power BI Deferred Design with Reza Rad, RADACAD – YouTube
#91. Join me with Reza Rad, the founder and CEO of RADACAD providing Power BI training and consultancy services to thousands of Microsoft customers and partners every year. Reza’s list of achievements is pretty embarrassing. He’s not just a 10 times Microsoft MVP. He’s a Microsoft Regional Director. He’s written over 15 books on data analytics, in addition to dozens of courses on RADACAD. He’s been a...
Apps for Winning Awards with Gail Mercer-MacKay, Mercer MacKay Solutions – YouTube
#92. Join me with Gail Mercer-MacKay, the founder and CEO of Mercer-MacKay. They have a unique position in the Microsoft ecosystem: they help Microsoft partners clarify their marketing message and produce compelling digital content that inspires Microsoft customers to take action. Our discussion covers: • Why Mercer-MacKay decided to Deploy Microsoft business applications internally. • Gail’s perspective on choosing a Microsoft...
Who Makes the Best Scrum Product Owner? – YouTube
#93. I dive deeper into getting into the right mindset to build applications, including using the Scrum agile approach. This episode covers: • Why the Product Owner is the most critical role in the Scrum team. • The accountability of the Product Owner. • Which type of person within an organisation makes the best Product Owner. Resources • Product Mastery – from good to great product ownership, by Geoff Watts...
Product Goals for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 – YouTube
#94. I dive deeper into getting into the right mindset to build applications. In the last episode, we looked at ten potential candidates for the product owner role in our scrum teams building Power Platform and Dynamics 365 applications. In this episode, we’re going to continue the product owner topic by helping the product owner set a product goal. This episode covers: • The 2020 edition of the Scrum Guide’s reference to...
10 Product Owner Myths on Power Platform and Dynamics 365 Projects – YouTube
#95. I continue the deeper dive into the role of the Product Owner, who is responsible for maximizing the impact of the application that the scrum team is building. And I think our product owners in Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects have a couple of twists compared to product owners on other scrum teams. This episode covers 10 myths about Product Owners. Resources • Customery Academy (https://customery.academy/) • Amazing...
Advanced Product Owner Questions – YouTube
#96. I continue the deeper dive into the role of the Product Owner with advanced Product Owner questions. This episode covers: • Can the product owner role be combined with scrum master or developer? • Which product owner certification that I recommend? • Making decisions about the product backlog, • Whether the Product Owner needs to be technical, • What’s the difference between a product owner and a project manager? • Whether...
5 Reasons To Avoid Analysis in Advance – YouTube
#97. I share five reasons why I think you should avoid analysis in advance when you’re building Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications. My five top reasons: • Peak ignorance. You’re analyzing the requirements during the period when your stakeholders know least about Microsoft business applications and your analysts know least about their needs. • Priority categorization. Your requirement specification doesn’t...
Hello, My Sweet Chatbot 🥰 with Dian Taylor – YouTube
#98. Hey everyone, Dian Taylor is here! Dian is a two-time MVP and a director of pre-sales at RSM US. She’s presenting, ‘Getting Started with Power Virtual Agents’ at DynamicsCon on 20 September. So I invited Dian onto the Amazing Apps show to tells us all about Power Virtual Agents and give us a sneak peek into her presentation. We discuss the summer weather in Florida and the easy life of pre-sales as well as some...
How to Design Forms for Amazing User Experiences with Mary Ann Castro – YouTube
#99. We all know that good form design is important especially when we’re building model-driven Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps. But what actually makes a good form design? Join me as Mary Ann Castro shares her secrets of effective form design from her upcoming presentation at DynamicsCon. Resources Mary Ann Castro on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mqocastro/) Register for DynamicsCon (https://dynamicscon.com/) Special...
Mastering Dynamics 365 Requirements in Azure DevOps with Dani Kahil – YouTube
#100. Are you looking for better ways to manage your Dynamics 365 and Power Platform requirements in Azure DevOps? Join me and Dani Kahil as we explore what it takes to master your requirements. • Why use Azure DevOps to manage requirements? • Structuring requirements into epics, features and user stories • Using a definition of ready to manage your backlog • Is requirements approval an anti-pattern? • Using different types of items...
Business Transformation with Microsoft Business Apps with Lipi Sarkar – YouTube
#101. DynamicsCon starts next week. Lipi Sarkar is presenting two sessions at DynamicsCon and joins me to share the highlights from her presentations as well as her book, Build a Digital Future. Resources • Register for DynamicsCon (https://dynamicscon.com) • Lipi Sarkar on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lipisarkar/) • Samit Saini (https://www.linkedin.com/in/samit-saini-017ba7144/) and Eric McKinney...
“OMG, I love your new system. It’s so easy to use!” with Bruce Sithole, 365 Mechanix – YouTube
#102. Bruce Sithole’s team at 265 Mechanix built a Power Portal application for a business to business lender that earned some serious kudos for his customer. Find out how in this episode of Amazing Applications. We also cover: • Starting your own Microsoft partner business • What is takes to achieve FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect • Which is better: FTRSA award or MVP award? • Building amazing Power Power applications •...
Microsoft FastTrack Success by Design with Seth Kircher – YouTube
103. The Microsoft FastTrack Success by Design implementation guide was first published in May 2021 and has refreshed this month (October 2021) in the 2021 Wave 2 update . What is Success by Design? Is it the latest incarnation of the Dynamics SureStep methodology or is it a new framework that all Dynamics 365 partners should consider adopting for their enterprise projects? To find out, I’m joined by Seth Kircher. He’s the...
Power Apps ALM Accelerator for Advanced Makers with Marc Schweigert, Microsoft – YouTube
#82. Join me with Marc Schweigert, a programme manager on the Power Customer Advisory Team at Microsoft as we talk about Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) approaches suited to novices and citizen developers through to professional developers. A healthy application lifecycle process is critical if you’re going to build amazing, agile, Dynamics 365 and Power Apps platform applications. I think it’s great that Microsoft...