#42. The topic for this episode is scrum teams. The composition and the characteristics of your scrum team remain fundamental to you having any success with an agile approach when you're implementing business applications. I recently refreshed the content of the scrum team section in my Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps course . In this refresh, I added a new video which answers frequently asked questions about scrum teams. I thought it would be a good idea to share some of those FAQs with the S...
Dec 05, 2019•22 min•Ep. 42
#41. Lots of Microsoft Business Applications teams use Azure DevOps Repos and Pipelines for managing their source code and automating their code integration, build and deployment processes. But what about using Azure DevOps Boards to plan, track and collaborate on your work in a Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power Automate or Power BI project? Tricia Sinclair, a CRM Pre-Sales Consultant at DXC Technology, is on a mission to help us all use Azure DevOps Boards for more than Repos and Pipelines. Resou...
Nov 07, 2019•45 min•Ep. 41
#40. There are two ways of handling bugs in Scrum: Bug Estimators treat bugs like any other product backlog item. They write a card, estimate it, add it to the product backlog, prioritise it and work on it during a future sprint. Bug Zappers try and avoid writing cards for bugs and they never estimate them. Instead, they try and zap bugs as soon as they are discovered. Mike Cohn is a Bug Estimator but Mitch Lacey is a Bug Zapper (so is almost every other Scrum trainer and team). Listen in to fin...
Oct 27, 2019•9 min•Ep. 40
#39. Imagine you're a member of a development team implementing Microsoft Business Applications using the Scrum framework. What do you do when you've completed the item you're working on? Inspired by my favourite TV show of all time, The West Wing, here's the Definition of Next that my team uses to answer the question, "What's Next?" Thanks to The West Wing Weekly podcast and to my scrum master, Matthew Venamore , for the inspiration for the Definition of Next. Visit customery.com/39 to download...
Oct 10, 2019•12 min•Ep. 39
#38. If you’re brand new to agile software development and are wondering how an agile approach can be applied to your Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power BI or Power Automate project, I’ve launched a new free mini-course: Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps . The course is ideal if you are interested in learning about agile software development and how business apps projects can benefit from an agile approach. After taking this course, you'll understand the history of agile software develo...
Oct 03, 2019•5 min•Ep. 38
#37. Steve Books is the Chief Technology Officer of Bam Boom Cloud (previously known as Cooper Parry IT Solutions), 2020 winner of the Microsoft Partner of the Year award for Dynamics 365 Business Central. Bam Boom Cloud is a mid-market accounting firm based in the UK. They've had a lot of success with the partner-to-partner business model that has eluded so many other Microsoft partners. Steve also shares his insights into Bam Boom Cloud's innovative business development process for qualifying ...
Aug 31, 2019•34 min•Ep. 37
#36. David Conti surprised me with the size of Velrada's project that was a finalist in the 2019 Microsoft Partner of the Year for Dynamics 365 Field Service awards. I had always assumed that PotY awards were a recognition of complex, enterprise projects successfully delivered by Microsoft's finest. Listen in as David reveals the size of Velrada's project at engineering maintenance company, Monadelphous. He also shares with us Velrada's agile approach, the tools that his team used to deliver the...
Aug 19, 2019•31 min•Ep. 36
#35. Mohamed Mostafa is the Solutions Director at TechLabs London , best known for iPropertyCloud , a suite of business applications for property companies. In this episode, Mohamed joins me to discuss the successful implementation of iPropertyCloud at Eagle Housing*. Eagle Housing is a rapidly-growing social housing organisation that manages 11,000 properties across the UK. Eagle Housing was referred to TechLabs London by another customer when their original Dynamics 365 project wasn’t deliveri...
Aug 05, 2019•45 min•Ep. 35
#34. I chat with Andrew Bibby about his successful Dynamics 365 project at Devon Financial Services*. Andrew is a Microsoft Business Applications MVP with over 12 years’ experience implementing Dynamics CRM and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement for several Microsoft partners and through his own company as an independent project advisor. The CRM project at Devon Financial Services was a five-year business transformation programme to improve the efficiency of their financial advisors by digitising ...
Jul 24, 2019•55 min•Ep. 34
#33. I'm joined by Johan Adenmark and Carolina Edvinsson from NAB Solutions . NAB Solutions was a finalist in the 2019 Microsoft Partner of the Year awards for the innovative work migrating 25 Dynamics NAV customers to Dynamics 365 Business Central within just a few months. Johan and Carolina share their experience undertaking so many cloud migrations and how they've had to transform how NAB Solutions works in order to migrate or deploy one customer every couple of days. We also learn their advi...
Jul 13, 2019•32 min•Ep. 33
#32. Have you ever been asked: "How much have you customised Dynamics 365?" "Is our CRM system customised more or less than average?" "Have we customised our system too much?" I've heard this question lots of times from IT leaders who want to know whether our Dynamics 365 system will continue to be supportable, extensible, updateable and performant. But how should we answer it? Support the show CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES ...
Jul 03, 2019•14 min•Ep. 32
#31. Have you ever had a Dynamics 365 or Power Apps disaster? I share the tale of my failed Power Apps Portals project. It got cancelled by the client before we released it to production. What went wrong? Are there warning signs that you can spot to avoid a Dynamics disaster of your own? Support the show CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Est...
Jun 13, 2019•22 min•Ep. 31
#30. Emergent design is an advanced practice for Microsoft Business Application team experienced in Scrum. What is emergent design? When we practice emergent design, the development team designs the solution to meet the users’ needs just before we build the feature. The opposite of emergent design is up-front design. This is when the solution is designed in the Design phase of the project, usually by a solution architect, based on the requirements specification published in the Analysis phase, a...
May 30, 2019•13 min•Ep. 30
#29. Can you use a definition of done for a sprint? I outline six ideas for a definition of done for a user story and three ideas for a definition of done for a sprint. According to the Scrum Guide, the definition of done helps us agree on when a product backlog item is complete. A sprint, on the other hand, is a time-boxed event so it's done when the time is up. But my teams have found it useful to have a definition of done for a sprint too. And one of our criteria is to run the Power Apps Solu...
May 16, 2019•10 min•Ep. 29
#28. Shawn Tabor wants to know whether to estimate project effort in days or story points. Aren't they the same thing? I've used four ways of estimating effort in my Dynamics 365 projects: Counting cards Days T-shirts Story points Estimating in days is an absolute estimation method, whereas t-shirts and story points are both relative estimation methods. This means that we compare the relative size of items using a scale, rather than trying to estimate the absolute size. Story point estimation ha...
May 06, 2019•10 min•Ep. 28
#27. Jonas Wauters from KPMG Belgium has a challenge pitching a Dynamics 365 project using Scrum to a prospective client. In particular, he'd like to know how to handle it when clients ask those three little questions: What are you going to deliver? When are you going to deliver it? How much is it going to cost? Neil's advice is to avoiding assuming that if a client is familiar with agile that everyone in the client's team is familiar with Scrum. Make sure you describe your Scrum framework in yo...
Apr 24, 2019•11 min•Ep. 27
#26. Dan Barber , from the Customery Crew, wanted to know what it would be like inside some of Neil’s scrum events. In Scrum Dynamics 26, Neil walks Dan through one of his recent ten-day sprints day-by-day from sprint planning on Monday morning to the sprint review two weeks later. Here’s how it went… Day One. Sprint planning is at 3pm for two hours on Monday afternoon. We finalise the sprint goal, determine and determine the sprint backlog. On Tuesday morning, we start work on any stories carri...
Apr 22, 2019•24 min•Ep. 26
#25. Neil is attempting a little experiment with a short, single question episode on the Amazing Applications podcast and on Youtube . Let’s see if he can answer your questions about Scrum for Dynamics 365 in ten minutes or less. The question in this episode is from Ruan Kilian, a Dynamics 365 developer in Brisbane, Australia. Ruan asks, “Is it acceptable for a developer to prepare and write down the answers to the three questions and read them out at the daily scrum?” Listen in or watch the epi...
Apr 22, 2019•8 min•Ep. 25
#24. Neil covers his top 10 antipatterns for Scrum roles in Dynamics 365 projects. An antipattern looks like a good idea to a situation you were facing but wasn’t the best option when you look back on it. Antipatterns are traps that we want to help others avoid. Here are Neil's top ten antipatterns for Scrum roles: Uncommitted product owner. If your senior project stakeholder is too senior, they usually won’t have the availability required to be a committed product owner. Find someone in the nex...
Apr 22, 2019•30 min•Ep. 24
#23. Neil and Dermot discuss when Microsoft Dynamics customers and partners should consider hiring a scrum master or agile coach for their project. What is an agile coach and how is this role different from a scrum master? A scrum master is a coach for the development team, the product owner and the organisation. Dermot reckons a scrum master can coach up to three teams. An agile coach focuses on coaching the organisation. The growth and agile mindset of the leadership team and the organisation’...
Apr 22, 2019•37 min•Ep. 23
#22. Some ideas turn out to be great ideas. Some ideas look like great ideas at the time but don't turn out so well in hindsight. Those are antipatterns. A pattern is a repeatable idea that solves a common problem, and should be adopted by others. An antipattern seems like an answer to a problem, but turns out badly and should be avoided by others. There are hundreds of Scrum antipatterns you’ll encounter as you embrace Scrum in your Dynamics 365 projects. In this episode, Neil highlights the to...
Apr 08, 2019•26 min•Ep. 22
#21. Mark Christie, who specialises in Dynamics 365 for Field Service at eBECS, uses Azure DevOps (formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services). He’s from Perth, the ancient capital of Scotland. On 25 January he’ll be celebrating Burns Night where the haggis is introduced to the table with bagpipes. Dynamics 365 Saturday Scotland runs on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 January, and its speakers will also be piped into the room. Azure DevOps combines planning tools such as backlogs and boards, with d...
Apr 05, 2019•34 min•Ep. 21
#20. Seth Bacon and Neil catch up to discuss Scrum in the public sector. You can connect with Seth Bacon on LinkedIn and @SethTBacon on Twitter . Check out Seth’s blog/vlog, The Bacon Bytes , for Dynamics 365 administrators. Seth’s having success implementing Dynamics 365 in city, county and state organisations in health and human services. Seth and Neil discuss how to sell agile projects in public sector organisations, how to handle fixed-price, fixed-scope, fixed-timeline contracts and project...
Apr 05, 2019•34 min•Ep. 20
#19. We’re on a mission to ensure every Microsoft customer and partner successfully implements Dynamics 365 using the Scrum framework. Do you have a question for the Scrum Dynamics podcast? Visit Customery.com and click on the Send Voicemail button to have your question feature on the show. Dermot and Neil discuss how to optimise Scrum teams on a Dynamics 365 project. Todd Mercer, from MD Financial Management in Ottawa Canada, asks “What to do motivate a team to operate at peak capacity for a lo...
Apr 04, 2019•43 min•Ep. 19
#18. Neil recently presented a live session on YouTube for the Dynamics 365 Community Corner . He recorded this special version of his presentation for the podcast covering: His first Dynamics CRM project using Scrum at Premier Medical Group How and why he switched from Microsoft Dynamics SureStep to Scrum after publishing the functional requirements document The horrors of basing a project plan and statement of work on a requirements specification The definition of Scrum as a framework, not a p...
Apr 04, 2019•25 min•Ep. 18
#17. Dermot and Neil discuss what to measure in your Dynamics 365 projects when you're using Scrum. Tracking velocity is the basic measure of progress. Velocity is the total number of story points of 'done' stories in each sprint and should be averaged over several sprints (usually 3 to 5 sprints). Using velocity within the team to plan the capacity for the next sprint, and by the product owner for forecasting the release. There's no velocity credit for partially done stories at the end of the s...
Apr 03, 2019•45 min•Ep. 17
#16. Dermot and Neil talk about the last two events in a sprint: the sprint review and the sprint retrospective, including: The format of sprint reviews and retrospectives How these events are structured Who should attend How to tailor them for Dynamics 365 projects Support the show CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps ...
Apr 03, 2019•41 min•Ep. 16
#15. Dermot’s picked up his Professional Scrum Master II and Professional Scrum Product Owner certifications. Good timing, Dermot, because our first question was from Dick Clark at eBECS who has a client project who wants to get certified in Scrum. Neil has recorded the Scrum Guide as an audio stream on SoundCloud to help Dermot get to sleep at night, and they debate whether holding a Scrum certification or having experience is more important for scrum masters. Squads, Tribes, Chapters and Guild...
Apr 03, 2019•33 min•Ep. 15
#14. Neil provides a behind-the-scenes peek into ‘Orientation Week’ in his Dynamics 365 project kicking off this week, the Jupiter Programme. Orientation Week (O-Week) is designed to onboard two Scrum teams so that they can start delivering the Dynamics 365 workstream of an enterprise programme as quickly as possible. I talk through some of the planned O-Week activities and provide my assessment of some of the project’s risks and strengths. What are your experiences of launching new Dynamics 365...
Apr 03, 2019•20 min•Ep. 14
#13. Neil covers all aspects of sprint planning for Dynamics 365 projects: What is sprint planning and when does it take place? Who attends sprint planning, and what to do if the product owner can’t make it? How long is sprint planning? What happens during sprint planning? Sprint goals, sprint backlog forecasting, Dynamics 365 feature design. What’s needed for sprint planning? Support the show CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES �...
Apr 03, 2019•11 min•Ep. 13
