Explore every episode of the podcast Amazing Apps - learn how to build agile Dynamics 365 and Power Platform business apps using Scrum
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Inevitable Underestimation of Power Platform Projects | 21 Jun 2025 | 00:07:33 | |
#161. Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner: every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated. Because no one wins overestimated projects... Mentioned in this episode: Estimating Business Apps: EOFY25 offer My Estimating Business Apps course will help you up level up your agile practice and answer those two frequent questions: 'How long is it going to take?' and 'How much is it going to cost?'. Normally priced at U$199, it’s designed to give you full confidence when scoping and sizing Dynamics 365 and Power Platform work. Estimating Business Apps is just U$50 if you go Pro before 30 June 2025. That’s a $149 saving to help you finish the (Australian financial) year stronger – and smarter. Don’t miss your chance to master the complete estimation process and quote your work like a pro. | |||
| Preparing for the First Sprint: Design Thinking and Discovery with Hamish Sheild | 10 Mar 2025 | 00:40:39 | |
#160. Hamish Sheild is a Microsoft MVP and Power Platform consultant specialising in applying Design Thinking practices to our apps and projects to make them more human-centred. Hamish and I discuss the different activities and artifacts we've experimented with before starting the delivery phase of our Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects. Join us as we discuss: 03:43 Design thinking exercises and goal setting 08:45 Inclusion of developers in the discovery phase 09:48 Importance of day in the life sessions 11:59 Exploration of design sprints 17:10 Creating customer and user journey maps 18:48 Utilizing user story maps for clarity 24:21 The role of prototyping in projects 25:11 Developing solution blueprints with Dynamics 365 30:18 Size and refinement of initial product backlog 32:02 Establishing environments 32:48 Business process maps 35:35 Crafting stakeholder maps for project success HAMISH SHEILD RESOURCES
RECOMMENDED EPISODES 👋 LET'S CONNECT 🌐 Subscribe to Customery Academy newsletter for new episode announcements and special offers ⭐ RATE AND REVIEW THE SHOW 👨💻 MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps | |||
| Super CRM: a case study | 02 Oct 2023 | 00:20:02 | |
#151. Amazing Apps host, Neil Benson, dives into a case study from one of his team's own projects: "Member Super", a financial services organisation in Australia. With over a million members, they needed a CRM application that could handle their complex stakeholder relationships and provide exceptional service to their customers. Member Super's existing CRM app was limiting their capabilities and hindering their goal of achieving a single view of their customers. So, they made the decision to take control and build their own CRM application. Superware partnered with them to make it happen, and the results were nothing short of AMAZING! CONNECT Mentioned in this episode: Subscribe to my new Estimating Business Apps podcast mini-series Estimating Business Apps is a five-part podcast that will help you quickly, accurately and confidently estimate complex Power Platform and Dynamics 365 apps in minutes. Listen now: https://estimating-business-apps.captivate.fm/listen | |||
| How Can We Be Sure We've Captured All Requirements? | 04 Nov 2020 | 00:06:16 | |
#61. Mark Llewellyn, Director of Technology at Osmosys Software Solutions in London asks, "How can you be sure you've captured all the requirements?" CONNECT | |||
| Scrum Guide 2020 Launch Event | 03 Nov 2020 | 00:07:18 | |
#60. This year, Scrum is celebrating its 25th anniversary. To celebrate, the Scrum Guide 2020 is being published at a free global launch event at 10:00 EST on Wednesday 18 November 2020. Click here to register for the Scrum Guide 2020 launch event The launch event is being hosted on Zoom, and the largest Zoom plan has an attendee limit of 1,000. Register for the event today, and join the session early to make sure you can get in. I expect the Scrum Guide 2020 to be even leaner and simpler to help more practitioners in new industries and domains adopt Scrum. I’m excited about the changes and I’m planning to incorporate significant changes to my Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps course as Scrum.org also updates the Professional Scrum Master certification syllabus. Student shout out Congratulations to Michael Handley, IT Project Manager at Health Carousel in Ohio, who joined my Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps audio course and recently achieved his Professional Scrum Master certification. If you’re interested in learning the Scrum framework and how to apply it to Power Apps and Dynamics 365 projects at a much lower cost then the audio course might be an option. It’s US$29 and contains audio versions of all the videos, the quizzes and the practice exam.
CONNECT | |||
| Certification for Dynamics 365 Product Owners | 21 Oct 2020 | 00:09:54 | |
#59. Neal Carty, a Business Solutions Consultant at Traction On Demand in Toronto asks:
Resources mentioned in this episode
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Have You Ever Fired a Client? | 28 Sep 2020 | 00:14:00 | |
#58. I had to fire a client this week. CONNECT | |||
| Dynamics 365 for Talent with Ana Inés Urrutia de Souza | 14 Sep 2020 | 00:21:41 | |
#57. Join me with Ana Inés Urrutia de Souza, a Dynamics 365 HR consultant at FourVision and a rising star in our Power Platform community. Ana shares the story behind the amazing Dynamics 365 for Talent application her team deployed at Centria, in Lima, Peru.
Connect with Ana CONNECT | |||
| Dynamics Con 2020 with Molly Fuschel | 02 Sep 2020 | 00:31:18 | |
#56. The biggest online community event of the year, Dynamics Con 2020, is just around the corner: Wednesday 9 to Thursday 10 September. I'm joined in this special episode by a special guest to discuss this special event -- the event's director, Molly Fuschel. CONNECT | |||
| Estimating How Much and How Long | 24 Aug 2020 | 00:22:51 | |
#55. In this second episode on estimating Microsoft Business Applications we answer your financial sponsor's two favourite questions:
If you're a Dynamics 365 or Power Platform project manager, business analyst, solution architect, pre-sales consultant, developer, or in business development, you'll find out how to answer those key questions in this in-depth episode. CONNECT | |||
| Lives Lived Well with Dani Kahil | 30 Jul 2020 | 00:41:51 | |
#54. I'm joined by Dani Kahil, Microsoft Business Applications practice lead at Empired, who shares the story behind one of his client projects, Lives Lived Well.
Show Contacts
Show Resources
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Estimating Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Applications | 14 Jul 2020 | 00:28:43 | |
#53. If you're building Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate or Power Virtual Agent applications, when and how should you be estimating your requirements, releases and applications?
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| 15 Industry Leaders Share Their Business Apps Career Advice | 18 Jun 2020 | 01:16:01 | |
#52. For this special episode, I asked 15 industry leaders how they were coping with the coronavirus restrictions and what advice they'd give to their younger selves if their career was affected by the impacts of an economic recession.
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| A Big Bang? Going Live with Dynamics 365 or Power Platform with Andrew Bibby | 19 Sep 2023 | 00:45:40 | |
#150. What does it take to have a successful go live event for your Dynamics 365 or Power Platform application. Neil Benson sat down with Andrew Bibby, a seasoned expert in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform business applications. In this episode, Andrew shares his insights on the crucial process of preparing for and executing a successful go live. From addressing technical difficulties to promoting user adoption and measuring success, Andrew sheds light on the often-overlooked aspects of post-delivery project management. He also discusses the importance of training, involving change champions, and effective communication in ensuring a smooth transition. Don't miss this informative episode filled with practical tips for achieving a seamless go-live and maximizing return on investment!
TIMESTAMPS CONNECT Mentioned in this episode: Subscribe to my new Estimating Business Apps podcast mini-series Estimating Business Apps is a five-part podcast that will help you quickly, accurately and confidently estimate complex Power Platform and Dynamics 365 apps in minutes. Listen now: https://estimating-business-apps.captivate.fm/listen | |||
| Amazing Apps Show Trailer | 12 Jun 2020 | 00:04:01 | |
#51. Welcome to the new Amazing Apps show. This episode is a bonus episode for previous subscribers of the Scrum Dynamics podcast explaining the reasons behind the name change and gives you a sneak preview of the new theme music. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Dynamics 365 for Recruitment Industry with Chris Kendrick, Mercury xRM | 01 Jun 2020 | 00:36:53 | |
#50. Chris Kendrick is the founder and CEO of Mercury xRM, who develop recruitment software on Dynamics 365 Sales. We discuss parsing resumes (and fine-tuning your own resume), as well as entity model designs, ISV product development, implementation approaches, remote training and user adoption incentives. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Agile Architects with Gus Gonzalez and Joel Lindstrom | 17 May 2020 | 01:09:01 | |
#49. I'm joined by Gus Gonzalez and Joel Lindstrom to discuss the role of solution architects in agile teams implementing Microsoft Business Applications.
CONNECT | |||
| Prototyping Power Apps with Clément Olivier | 04 May 2020 | 00:26:43 | |
#48. My guest is Clément Olivier from Javista in Nantes, France. Clément was recently awarded a Power Platform FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect designation. He was one of 8 first-time Power Apps architects and 5 Power BI architects to be recognised, in addition to a new group of Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations and Customer Engagement architects. It's a recognition from the Microsoft FastTrack team within the Business Apps product engineering group of a solution architect who consistently exhibits deep architecture expertise and creates high-quality solutions during customer engagements. Congratulations to all of you. I invited Clément to share with some of the factors behind one of his recent successful projects in which his team built two Power Apps for a kitchen design factory. Listen in as we discover how they used a concierge app to welcome guests and capture their sentiment regarding kitchen samples using Azure Cognitive Services. Clément’s team used a rapid prototyping technique to get early feedback from users on the features they needed in their kitchen design Power App. One of his recommendations is to know the capabilities of the different components available — canvas and model Power Apps, CDS, Azure services so you can make the most appropriate design choices. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| When to Use Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps | 17 Apr 2020 | 00:11:54 | |
#47. Is Scrum the best approach to use for every Microsoft Business Application? No! Join me, as we explore the Stacey and Cynefin models that help us make judgements about which types of applications are suited to a Scrum approach and which aren't. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Fixing Your Scrum with Ryan Ripley | 27 Mar 2020 | 00:53:02 | |
#46. Ryan Ripley joins me in Amazing Apps to discuss his new book, Fixing Your Scrum. Ryan is a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org. We also discuss:
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Live Inside My Daily Scrum | 23 Mar 2020 | 00:26:21 | |
#45. This is a special, bonus episode of Amazing Applications with a live recording from inside my current Scrum teams' daily scrum. Take a sneak peek as my developers share their progress with each other and adjust the sprint backlog as they learn more about what they've accomplished. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Agile is Dead | 09 Feb 2020 | 00:11:08 | |
#44. Someone sends me an "Agile is Dead" article at least once a year. Are these articles with their clickbait headlines just opinion pieces with no data to back up the authors' claims or are they well-researched and thought-provoking journalism? Here's one, Agile software development is dead. Deal with it. It was written by Jason Bloomberg and published in SiliconANGLE. I have some fun with the author's claims that agile software is dead because it's 19, is impossible to scale, and promotes exclusion. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| CRM Success at Orbis Investments with EY Kalman | 21 Jan 2020 | 00:47:30 | |
#43. EY Kalman, also known as the CRM Ninja, joins me in this episode of Amazing Apps to reveal the critical factors behind the success of his Dynamics CRM project at Orbis Investments. Listen in as he reveals his critical success factors on this project. CONNECT | |||
| All Your Scrum Team Questions Answered | 05 Dec 2019 | 00:21:34 | |
#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 Scrum Dynamics audience to give you a sneak peek into the kind of topics you'll find in the course. Student shout-out to Jackie Walker from Capgemini and Veronica Kamph from CRM-Konsulterna. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Breaking Free from the Tyranny of the Deliverable with Andrew Welch | 06 Sep 2023 | 00:25:55 | |
#149. Andrew Welch is the Chief Technology Officer at HSO. Andrew is an expert in IT strategy and has a wealth of experience advising customers on their big strategic technology decisions. He is also an author, Microsoft MVP, and a regular presenter at conferences. Joining us today, Andrew shares valuable insights on the importance of IT leadership, cloud ecosystems, data platforms, artificial intelligence, and the future of innovation in technology. We dive into the concept of the "Tyranny of the Deliverable" and how it relates to IT organizations organizing themselves into technology-focused teams. Andrew also discusses the need for a holistic approach to digital transformation and the role of a cloud strategist in piecing together various technical components to drive business value. If you're an IT leader, architect, or consultant, this episode is packed with valuable perspectives and tips from Andrew Welch. Don't miss it! TIMESTAMPS 02:09 Importance of CIOs leading technology ecosystem integration. 04:48 Enterprise architects focus on specific workloads. Another architect, a cloud strategist, is needed for building capabilities and driving business value. 07:55 Microsoft's platform is versatile for mix and match. 11:11 Lunch with Ana Demeny, discussing Microsoft versus Google. 16:09 AI investment: data consolidation for value-delivery. 20:26 Tyranny of the deliverable: siloed teams, wrong solutions, budget incentives, counterproductive. Solution: subscription as a service model. Move away from hourly charges and fixed scopes. 24:55 Andrew presenting 5 strategies at Nordic Summit. RESOURCES Andrew Welch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdwelch Andrew's blog: CloudLight.House: https://CloudLight.house Dynamics 365 and Power Platform UK User Groups: https://d365ppug.com Nordic Summit, 23 September 2023: https://nordicsummit.info Forceworks Services-as-a-Subscription: https://forceworks.com/the-works-from-forceworks CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪 -Neil | |||
| Managing Requirements in Azure DevOps with Tricia Sinclair | 07 Nov 2019 | 00:44:47 | |
#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. CONNECT | |||
| Estimating Bugs in Scrum | 27 Oct 2019 | 00:08:54 | |
#40. There are two ways of handling bugs in Scrum:
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 find out which approach I recommend for Microsoft Business Applications teams using Scrum. Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Definition of Next | 10 Oct 2019 | 00:12:14 | |
#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 my Definition of Next checklist. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Agile Foundations Course Launch | 03 Oct 2019 | 00:04:34 | |
#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 development, and it's values and principles. You'll also discover the Scrum framework and the benefits it can bring to your Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power BI or Power Automate application. In about an hour, the Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps course will help you understand agile software development, and the basics and benefits of the Scrum framework in six high-quality videos, with captions, transcripts and quizzes. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Repeatable Dynamics 365 Business Central with Steve Brooks, Bam Boom Cloud | 31 Aug 2019 | 00:34:15 | |
#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 prospective clients and engaging them remotely on rapid projects to deploy Dynamics 365 Business Central quickly and successfully. It was the repeatability of Bam Boom Cloud's process that contributed to their Microsoft PotY award. Well done Steve, Vicky and the Bam Boom Cloud team. CONNECT | |||
| Agile Field Service at Monadelphous with David Conti, Velrada | 19 Aug 2019 | 00:30:41 | |
#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 project and the importance of helping your customer's IT team learn about Dynamics 365. CONNECT | |||
| Dynamics 365 Turnaround at Eagle Housing with Mohamed Mostafa, iPropertyCloud | 05 Aug 2019 | 00:45:06 | |
#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 delivering the expected results. Eagle Housing went live in production eight weeks after re-starting their project with TechLabs London! Then they used an agile approach to iteratively and incrementally enhance the system every four weeks based on feedback from the users. Using an industry solution, like iPropertyCloud, TechLabs London is able to deliver most of the features that users need in that initial release. Starting with an industry solution was a critical factor in the project’s success. They had the right people from the customer’s organisation on the project team including business analysts to provide and prioritise the requirements, and users available to test the application and provide their feedback. Although Eagle Housing’s board of directors was split in their support for the Dynamics 365 project, because of the earlier project, Mohammed was able to persuade them to give his team a couple of months to produce results. Not only has TechLabs London found a successful way of delivering projects remotely, they even have examples of customers they have never met, evaluating and acquiring iPropertyCloud and going live in production. They had to keep a can-do attitude when faced with challenges integrating Dynamics 365 with an existing system managed by another vendor on behalf of Eagle Housing. Mohamed invited the Microsoft team to meet Eagle Housing several times throughout the project. You don’t need to be an enterprise customer these days. Microsoft loves to hear from and meet any successful customer. And these success stories are good news for all Microsoft partners too (which is one of the reasons I’m producing this podcast series). Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Dynamics 365 for Financial Services Transformation with Andrew Bibby | 24 Jul 2019 | 00:55:21 | |
#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 paper-based client on-boarding and sales processes. Andrew’s role as an independent project advisor is to assist the customer and their Microsoft partner to achieve the project’s outcomes. Listen in as Andrew highlights several critical factors to the success of the CRM project at Devon Financial Services:
Resources CONNECT | |||
| Migrating to Dynamics 365 Business Central with Johan Adenmark and Carolina Edvinsson | 13 Jul 2019 | 00:32:29 | |
#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 advice for nominating your organisation for the PotY awards. This was the first time that NAB Solutions had entered and they've achieved a finalist position in their first go. Download the PotY award rules, guidelines, judges' advice and FAQs from the Microsoft Partner awards site. CONNECT | |||
| How Much Have You Customised Dynamics 365? | 03 Jul 2019 | 00:13:44 | |
#32. Have you ever been asked:
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 showCONNECT | |||
| Amazing CRM & ERP Apps in Manufacturing with Shawn Tabor | 21 Aug 2023 | 00:32:35 | |
#148. Get ready for another captivating episode of Amazing Apps! In this episode, Neil Benson engages Shawn Tabor, Director of Consulting Services at Hitachi Solutions, in an insightful conversation about the dynamic realm of Microsoft Business Applications and its role in the manufacturing and service industries. Explore Hitachi's product landscape, investment strategies, and the art of identifying patterns to create accelerators for efficient project estimations. Discover Shawn's podcasting journey, collection hobbies, and upcoming conference plans. Timestamps 05:40 Improving customer experience for manufacturers RESOURCES
Support the show CONNECT Mentioned in this episode: Subscribe to my new Estimating Business Apps podcast mini-series Estimating Business Apps is a five-part podcast that will help you quickly, accurately and confidently estimate complex Power Platform and Dynamics 365 apps in minutes. Listen now: https://estimating-business-apps.captivate.fm/listen | |||
| Power Apps Portals Disaster (Even with Scrum!) | 13 Jun 2019 | 00:22:24 | |
#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 showCONNECT | |||
| Emergent Design | 30 May 2019 | 00:12:59 | |
#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, and before any software has been developed. Advantages of emergent design Compared to designing all your features up-front near the beginning of the project, emergent design offers several advantages:
Listen to Scrum Dynamics podcast episode 30 or watch the video on YouTube to find out why I love emergent design and how I used it on my recent project to find the best possible design for integrating Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement with Adobe Campaign. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Done! With the Power Apps Solution Checker | 16 May 2019 | 00:10:22 | |
#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 Solution Checker on our custom solutions. The Power Apps Solution Checker is now generally available in Dataverse. It runs hundreds of checks on your plug-ins, customer workflow activities, web resources and configurations and warns you if there are any issues. Running the Power Apps Solution Checker at the end of every sprint helps my team ensure that their solutions are supported, maintainable, extensible and won't cause any performance issues. What definition of done do you use for your user stories? Do you use a definition of done for sprints or releases? I'd love to know in the comments. Links mentioned in the show:
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Shawn, Stop Estimating Effort in Days! with Shawn Tabor | 06 May 2019 | 00:10:29 | |
#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:
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 has several benefits:
Shawn, stop estimating Microsoft Business Applications projects in days and start using story points! CONNECT | |||
| Pitching Scrum to Microsoft Customers | 24 Apr 2019 | 00:10:48 | |
#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:
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 your proposal and presentation so that everyone has a common understanding. Neil also describes how he uses user story maps to help clients visualise the scope, timeline and costs associated with a Dynamics 365 project. You can find out more about story maps for Dynamics 365 here: https://customery.com/storymaps. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Timeline of a 2-week Sprint | 22 Apr 2019 | 00:24:10 | |
#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 carried over from the previous sprint, one-point stories and spikes. The Dynamics 365 squads hold their daily scrums at 9.15am and 9.30am. On Tuesday morning there’s a showcase for our business stakeholders. Tuesday afternoon is our retrospective for the previous sprint. Day Two. We have a technical design session on Wednesday morning to finalise the technical designs for the more complex stories. In the afternoon the analysts run a storytime workshop to elaborate and estimate stories for a future sprint. Day Three. The first product owner review session is on Thursday afternoon. It’s an opportunity for the tester to demonstrate any completed features for the product owner’s acceptance (fingers crossed). Day Four. Applause in Friday’s daily scrum as the first few accepted stories are moved to done. We sometimes hold back on completing all the definition of done activities until the end of the sprint so that developers can get working on another story and let the testers start testing as early as possible. Day Five. Monday doesn’t have any scrum events so it’s a solid development day. I’d love to say we’re halfway through the sprint backlog when we’re halfway through the sprint, but we’re often still playing catch up. Day Six. On Tuesday morning, some of the developers have finished all the stories they forecast they would complete. They help other developers complete their stories, work on spikes, chores and bugs. We can bring stories in from the product backlog, but only if the development team agrees that we can get the story developed and tested before the end of the sprint. Day Seven. Our aim is to be dev complete on all story cards by the end of the day on Wednesday so that our testers have sufficient time to test all our stories and have them accepted by the end of the sprint. Day Eight. We’re helping the testers by responding to feedback. We don’t track bugs reported by the testers or product owner. Instead, we just fix them on the spot. Unless they are low priority and we don’t want to fix them in this sprint, or they were reported by someone outside the scrum team. If there aren’t any bugs, then we’re finishing definition of done activities and working on spikes and chores. We’re helping our devops engineer automate all our deployment tasks. We don’t want to have any manual deployment steps. So we automate everything using Atlassian Bamboo and Octopus Deploy. We also have another storytime workshop to elaborate and esitmate stories for a future sprint on Thursday afternoon. Day Nine. Thank goodness it’s Friday. There aren’t any sprint events today. We might run an ad-hoc design workshop on Friday morning to Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Reading Your Answers at the Daily Scrum | 22 Apr 2019 | 00:08:17 | |
#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?”
If you’d like to ask me Neil question about Scrum for Microsoft Business Applications, click on the Send Voicemail widget on Customery.com or send a video to scrum@customery.com. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Scrum Role Antipatterns | 22 Apr 2019 | 00:30:04 | |
#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:
Support the show CONNECT | |||
| Hiring a Coach for Your Dynamics 365 Scrum Team | 22 Apr 2019 | 00:37:27 | |
#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’s digital transformation. An agile coach is familiar with many agile frameworks and tools in addition to Scrum. Some agile coaches also coach scrum masters as well as leadership teams. Dermot’s coaching both! Should Microsoft customers hire an independent scrum master or rely on their Microsoft partner to provide a scrum master for their Dynamics 365 project? Dermot’s advice is that smaller customers embarking on a single project should engage a Microsoft partner with a good scrum master, but if the Dynamics project is part of a broader digital transformation programme then an independent agile coach is a good investment. Should Microsoft customers hire an independent product owner? After a little consideration, Neil begins to agree with Dermot that an independent product owner can when the person is trusted by the client, knows the organisation well, and is given some time to ‘bed in’ to the project. Can Microsoft partners send their project managers to a Scrum training course and ask them to become a scrum masters on their next project? It’s a loaded question for Dermot! It’s tough for project managers to become scrum masters on their first Scrum project. The project manager won’t have a mentor to help them adopt Scrum. This will leave the project manager, the scrum team and the client short-changed. Neil partnered with another Microsoft partner organisation, CIBER UK, on his first Scrum project and they provided an experienced scrum master, Paul Fox, to coach the team through their first scrum project. Investing in outside help through your first Scrum project was a worthwhile idea. Having the get-up-and-go to just try Scrum without any coaching is risky but it can work. Nick Doelman is an example of a Dynamics 365 expert whose teams adopted Scrum without hiring an experienced scrum master to coach them through their first Scrum projects. What are the characteristics you should look for when hiring an agile coach or scrum master? Dermot asks scrum masters situational questions about examples of how to handle difficult team members, when they’ve displayed servant leadership, how they’ve helped product owners prioritise their epics, what metrics they track and what they do with those metrics. He’d ask agile coaches what’s the difference between an agile coach and a scrum master. What examples do they have of leading digital transformation programmes, how they have uplifted the capabilities of agile teams, and what agile frameworks they are familiar with and how they’ve leveraged them. And what other coaches do they follow and how do they keep their own experience up-to-date? Neil has seen scrum master candidates asked to facilitate a retrospective without e Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Scrum Event Antipatterns | 08 Apr 2019 | 00:25:43 | |
#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 top ten Scrum event antipatterns that he's witnessed in Dynamics 365 projects. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Power Platform pipelines or Azure DevOps pipelines for ALM? with Benedikt Bergmann | 21 Aug 2023 | 00:33:59 | |
#147. When should you use Power Platform pipelines and when should you use Azure DevOps pipelines to deploy your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 applications? That's the question that Benedikt Bergmann answers in this episode of Amazing Apps. Benedikt is a Power Platform consultant known for his expertise in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). Neil and Benedikt delve into the world of ALM, discussing its importance for small and enterprise teams alike. From tools and environments to testing and components outside of solutions. Whether you're a low code app builder or part of a large development team, this episode has something for everyone. Join us as we explore the intricacies of ALM and discover how to deploy and maintain applications in a secure, efficient, and repeatable manner. Register for Benedikt's ALM Training Course Resources Overview of Power Platform pipelines More power with pipelines in Power Platform Power Platform server on Discord Connect with Benedikt CONNECT 🌏 Amazing Apps website MY ONLINE COURSES 🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪 -Neil | |||
| Azure DevOps with Mark Christie | 05 Apr 2019 | 00:34:03 | |
#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 development tools like source control and testing with operations features to help you compile and deploy your applications. Neil is enjoying the forecasting feature of Azure DevOps which helps you see how long a project might take given a set of product backlog items and estimated team velocity. Mark enjoys building Azure DevOps dashboards and that although it’s a large suite, users can use a single app, like testing, within Azure DevOps without knowing the other parts of it. Azure DevOps is free for small project teams up to five users. Paid plans start at US$30 per month for 10 users to $750 per month for 100 users. Visual Studio subscribers are free. Microsoft partners can choose whether to provide their own instance of Azure DevOps and invite their customers to join, or whether to join their customer’s instance of Azure DevOps. When they recorded this episode, neither Mark nor Neil knew there was an on-premise option of Azure DevOps available. There is. It’s called Azure DevOps Server 2019 and it’s the successor to Team Foundation Server. Mark outlines how he manages his product back in Azure DevOps. Mark uses tasks to manage the work required to complete user stories in his backlog whereas Neil doesn’t. Mark also reveals a cunning track: using hashtags to label items even more quickly than using the label feature. Mark and Neil share the different statuses they use to track how items move across their Scrum boards. Mark’s co-worker, Richard Harding, gets credit for how Mark’s team are using the Azure DevOps wiki feature to help stakeholders learn how to use Dynamics 365’s features. Finally, if you think Scotsmen are famous for being frugal with their money, Mark will pay you £1.25 for a $1 note. Mark’s blog: TheMarkChristie.co.uk Mark’s LinkedIn profile: Mark Christie Mark’s Twitter page: TheMarkChristie Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Scrum in the Public Sector with Seth Bacon | 05 Apr 2019 | 00:34:09 | |
#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 projects by encouraging the customer’s product owner to take control of prioritising the project scope and adopting an agile mindset. Support the showCONNECT | |||
| Optimising Scrum Teams | 04 Apr 2019 | 00:43:00 | |
#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 long period of time? For enterprises that can’t afford a dedicated product owner or scrum master, what roles do you see pair up on a part-time basis?” Dermot and Neil discuss sharing the product owner, scrum master and developer roles. They also share our experience of keeping scrum teams interested and having fun on long-running projects by keeping things fun, letting them experiment, and get more involved in refining the backlog. Using the Dedicated-Time Model or Dedicated-Team Model (Scrum Field Guide by Mitch Lacey) for managing legacy systems while deploying Dynamics 365. Using a decision log to document design shifts from sprint to sprint in order to explain scope changes to your project sponsor and ask for the additional budget if you need it. Scope changes belong to the product owner, rather than the development team. Having T-shaped skills in developers and cross-functional skills in a development team to avoid resource constraints. Encouraging developers to broaden their skills and knowledge to improve the team’s overall velocity. Avoiding customisation conflicts by using a magic wand to indicate that you’re working on a commonly-used solution component. Using digital tools such as Skype or Teams and frequent conversations to keep each other up-to-date on what we’re doing. Working on very small scrum teams and large teams. Neil recounts his experience working as a one-person development team, and Dermot and Neil worked on a team with 18 people. The Scrum Guide says development teams should have 3 to 9 people, so are Dermot and Neil crazy? Should you split large teams into component teams and feature teams? Dermot is a fan of feature teams because they have the cross-functional skills to release an increment to production. Component teams can’t release their work into production, but Neil has seen a component team used successfully for systems integration work. How do you manage dependencies on resources outside your scrum team? When Dermot needs firewall changes performed by the networks team he lines up the request weeks in advance to ensure there are no blockers during his sprint when the firewall changes are needed. Neil has two of the infrastructure team embedded in his programme to help raise, route and escalate dependent requests outside of my scrum teams. Can a Dynamics team work with multiple product owners? Neil reckons they can when there is a product owner for each feature team in a scaled scrum project, but not when there is a committee of product owners. Dermot shares his experience of area and chief product owners. Support the showCONNECT | |||