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 Highlights [02:48] Andrew’s background and what it’s like living ...
Dec 13, 2022•49 min•Ep. 132
#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] Magnus’ background and his career in business applications [03:29] Magn...
Nov 24, 2022•38 min•Ep. 131
#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 Nordic Summit South Coast Summit Upcoming online conferences I'm presenting at: 2 Nov 2022 at Power Platform 24 4 Nov 2022 at New Zealand Business Applications Summit Learn how to qualify, pitch, prop...
Oct 19, 2022•15 min•Ep. 130
#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 stories How to derive the duration that describes how long it'll take to build the ...
Sep 27, 2022•17 min•Ep. 129
#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 scales commonly used by agile teams The estimation scale my teams use This episode is the second of...
Sep 14, 2022•12 min•Ep. 128
#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 Estimating t-shirts doesn't either Estimates, forecasts and commitments This episode is the first o...
Aug 25, 2022•20 min•Ep. 127
#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 and split the story points across the sprints in which the work got...
Aug 15, 2022•13 min•Ep. 126
#125. In this episode of Amazing Applications, Emil Hovgaard and Sheelan Bhana of EY Nordic Tech Hub share the story behind EY's PowerPost application and how it has made the General Ledger posting process easier and faster for the EY organization. Emil’s background and his role at the EY organization Sheelan’s background and his role at the EY organization Emil’s favorite Microsoft application Sheelan’s favorite Microsoft application What Emil did during his time in the EY strategy team in Aust...
Aug 12, 2022•23 min•Ep. 125
#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 review workshop. During sprints, we're writing unit tests, functional test cases, des...
Jul 29, 2022•11 min•Ep. 124
#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 and answers sprint goal questions like: What's the benefit for having...
Jul 21, 2022•13 min•Ep. 123
#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 CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Mic...
Jul 04, 2022•8 min•Ep. 122
#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 built and what problems have already been solved within a large organisati...
Jun 17, 2022•37 min•Ep. 121
#120. Hamish Sheild describes his five step Solution Mapping framework for using design thinking principles to define the requirements for complex Power Apps. 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 Swimlane business process mapping Are as-is process diagrams worth the effort? Creating a product backlog of...
Jun 07, 2022•34 min•Ep. 120
#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 free today at ScottishSummit.com . What is pre-sales? Why do pre-sales consultants get paid s...
May 29, 2022•44 min•Ep. 119
#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 on the Power Apps blog. Ulrikke is the Low Code Platform Lead at Itera in Norway and has been a Microsoft MVP since 2021. Ulrikke is prese...
May 19, 2022•23 min•Ep. 118
#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 developers ". Register today for Scottish Summit . Chike invites us to answer f...
May 12, 2022•24 min•Ep. 117
#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 Andrew discuss: How Andrew's client engaged him as an advisor t...
May 03, 2022•49 min•Ep. 116
#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 at Scottish Summit, "The chicken-egg dilemma; should product ...
Apr 25, 2022•23 min•Ep. 115
#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 Avanade, and she's based in London in the UK. Tricia Sinclair on LinkedIn Tricia Sincla...
Apr 11, 2022•22 min•Ep. 114
#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 . Congratulations to Yacob Shenkute from Power Platform School for achieving his Scrum.org PSM1 certification . Resources Vivian Voss on LinkedIn Vivian Voss on Twitter Vivian's blog Customer Experience Platform user group Support the show CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website 🟦 Customery on LinkedIn 🟦 N...
Apr 04, 2022•24 min•Ep. 113
#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 with a custom web portal rather than Power Apps Portals. Internal project team of a func...
Mar 28, 2022•38 min•Ep. 112
#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 development, and the principles and values in the agile manifesto The basics of the S...
Mar 15, 2022•37 min•Ep. 111
#110. My current team is stuck in Limbo. We've finished development of a Dynamics 365 application for a local government department and we're tapping our fingers waiting for acceptance testing to start. What should agile testing look like on a Dynamics 365 or Power Platform project? I describe my agile testing Heaven, and the next best thing, Elysium. And what it's like to be stuck in Limbo. What does testing look like on your business applications projects today? Resources Agile Testing | https...
Feb 10, 2022•13 min•Ep. 110
#109. In this special episode, I'm interviewed by Dani Kahil about my experience delivering an enterprise CRM project at RACQ (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 the pleasure of leading their Dynamics 365 delivery team. Resources Dani Kahil's website D...
Jan 24, 2022•50 min•Ep. 109
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 . Resources Some of these resources include affiliate links that could result in a commission paid to me so that I can blow off my con...
Jan 04, 2022•18 min•Ep. 108
#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 already a little behind schedule. Would you refuse and keep control of the team so tha...
Dec 23, 2021•16 min•Ep. 107
#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 -- to be involved in backlog refinement, but the ideal would be if all the ...
Dec 07, 2021•15 min•Ep. 106
#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 why. You'll also find a video accompanying this podcast episode on the Customer...
Nov 29, 2021•11 min•Ep. 105
#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 Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps, Customery Academy Support the show...
Nov 19, 2021•10 min•Ep. 104
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 Principal FastTrack Solution Architect Manager for Microsoft FastTrack's ...
Oct 18, 2021•44 min•Ep. 103
