Mastering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Implementations

CONFIDENTLY SHEPHERD YOUR ORGANIZATION’S IMPLEMENTATION OF MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365 TO A SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION

In Mastering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Implementations, accomplished executive, project manager, and author Eric Newell delivers a holistic, step-by-step reference to implementing Microsoft’s cloud-based ERP and CRM business applications. You’ll find the detailed and concrete instructions you need to take your implementation project all the way to the finish line, on-time, and on-budget.

You’ll learn:

* The precise steps to take, in the correct order, to bring your Dynamics 365 implementation to life
* What to do before you begin the project, including identifying stakeholders and building your business case
* How to deal with a change management throughout the lifecycle of your project
* How to manage conference room pilots (CRPs) and what to expect during the sessions

Perfect for CIOs, technology VPs, CFOs, Operations leaders, application directors, business analysts, ERP/CRM specialists, and project managers, Mastering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Implementations is an indispensable and practical reference for guiding your real-world Dynamics 365 implementation from planning to completion.

ERIC NEWELL is the Co-Founder and CEO of Stoneridge Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner, focused on Dynamics. Prior to founding Stoneridge, he worked at Microsoft for 13 years in Dynamics-related roles including support engineer, IT lead for support systems, Technical Account Manager and as a Premier Field Engineering team leader. He frequently presents on topics related to implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365, and has spoken at Microsoft conferences over a dozen times. He has served as a project management trainer at Microsoft as well as local universities.

Introduction xxvii

CHAPTER 1 • STAGES OF AN IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW 1

What Is Microsoft Dynamics? 1

The Client Journey 2

Implementation Methodologies 5

Waterfall and Sure Step 5

Agile and Scrum 7

Triple Constraints 8

The Bottom Line 9

CHAPTER 2 • WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU BEGIN A PROJECT 11

Identify Your Project Team and Stakeholders 11

Executive Sponsor 12

Project Owner 12

Business Process Owner(s) 13

Project Manager 13

Core Team and a Core Team Lead 14

Subject Matter Experts 14

IT Resources 15

Time Commitment by Role 17

Identify Your Processes in Scope 18

Clean Up Your Data 19

Identify Your “Master” Data 19

Develop Naming Conventions 20

Identify System Owners 20

Find and Resolve Duplicates and Incorrect Data 20

Define Your Success Metrics 21

Possible Benefits 22

Building Your Business Case and Securing Funding 23

How Much Should an ERP Project Cost? 24

Costs to Include in Your Calculations 24

Capitalizing Costs 25

Contingency 27

Return on Investment (ROI) 27

Gaining Approval 28

The Bottom Line 29

CHAPTER 3 • FOUR KEYS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUYING AN ERP OR CRM SOLUTION 31

Selection Process 31

Selection Consultant 32

Decision Maker 33

The Four Keys 33

Fit 34

Platform 35

Implementer 39

Cost 41

Building Your Scorecard 44

The Bottom Line 45

CHAPTER 4 • HOW TO EVALUATE AND BUY BUSINESS APPLICATION SOFTWARE 47

Buying Process Steps 47

Qualification Stage 48

Discovery and Demonstration Stage 49

Selecting Your Vendor 51

Leadership or Board Approval 54

Moving Forward 54

The Bottom Line 54

CHAPTER 5 • ORGANIZING YOUR TEAM FOR SUCCESS AND PROJECT GOVERNANCE 57

RACI 57

Your Project Team 58

Your Partner’s Implementation Team 59

Executive Sponsor 60

Engagement Manager 60

Project Manager 60

Solution Architect or Solution Delivery Manager 60

Functional Consultant or Consultants 61

Technical Consultant 61

Development Lead and Developers 61

Integration Architect 61

Data Migration Specialist 62

Project Governance 62

Project Communication 62

Resource Loading 62

Project Schedule 66

Document Repository 67

Budget Tracking 68

Change Requests 68

Project Management Plan 68

The Bottom Line 69

CHAPTER 6 • SPRINTS AND TOOLS NEEDED TO RUN YOUR PROJECT 73

Definition of a Sprint 73

Length of a Sprint 74

Start and End of a Sprint 74

Delivering Value in a Sprint 74

Backlog 75

Project Backlog 75

Sprint Backlog 76

Allocating Work to Team Members 76

Sprint Success Rate 76

Sprint Meetings 77

Sprint Planning 77

Sprint Review 77

Sprint Retrospective 78

Stand-up Meetings 78

Work Definitions 79

Epic 79

Feature 79

User Story 80

Requirement 80

Research Task 80

Design Task 80

Development Task 81

Test Task 81

Other Task 81

Test Case 81

Test 81

Bug (Defect) 81

Risk 81

Issue 82

Change Request 82

Code and Changesets 82

Azure DevOps 82

DevOps Fields 82

Progress Reporting 83

Analytical Views 83

The Bottom Line 84

CHAPTER 7 • CHANGE MANAGEMENT THROUGHOUT YOUR PROJECT 87

Success Criteria 88

Use of Satisfaction Surveys 89

Nine Steps to Change Management 90

Leadership Alignment 90

Organization Evaluation 91

Outline Your Business Process Change Steps 92

Develop a System Vision that Provides Benefits to All Stakeholders 92

Communicate Effectively 92

Maximize the Team’s Time in the New System 94

Train Effectively 94

Set Realistic Expectations for the System Just After Go-Live 94

Support Your Team Members After Go-Live 95

Steps to Business Process Change 95

Importance of Adoption 96

The Bottom Line 96

CHAPTER 8 • ORGANIZING YOUR BUSINESS BY PROCESSES 99

Common Language Businesses Speak 99

Operations 100

Sales 100

Finance and Administration 100

Standard Processes 100

Process Hierarchy 102

Process Category 102

Process Group 103

Process 103

Sub-processes, Tasks, Activities, and Requirements 104

Discovering Your Processes 104

SIPOC 104

Core Team Members 106

Rounding Out Your Scope 106

The Bottom Line 106

CHAPTER 9 • INDEPENDENT SOFTWARE VENDORS—FILLING GAPS AND MANAGING PARTNERSHIPS 109

The Purpose of ISVs 109

Hosting Providers 110

Private Hosting 111

SaaS-Style Hosting 111

Industry ISVs 111

Deciding If You Need an Industry ISV 112

Functional ISVs 113

Missing Functionality 113

Advanced Features 113

Missing Connector 113

Automation 114

Reporting Extensions 114

Deciding If You Need a Functional ISV 114

Working with ISVs 114

Budgeting for ISV Solutions 115

Implementation Partner or Customer Managed 115

Buying the ISV License or Subscription 115

Implementation of ISV Products 116

Manage Your ISV Projects Closely 116

Microsoft’s AppSource Marketplace 117

Product Listing 118

Services Listing 118

The Bottom Line 119

CHAPTER 10 • FACTORS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT KICKOFF 121

Pre-Kickoff Meeting Activities 121

Checklist 121

Expectations for the Meeting 124

Outing 124

Kickoff Meeting Content 124

Executive Overview 125

Introductions and Role Review 125

Expectations for Team Members 126

Project Management and Communication Plan 126

Project Schedule 126

Resources 126

Navigation Overview [OPTIONAL] 127

Wrapping Up 127

Executive Message 127

Expectations for the Project Team 128

Time Commitment 128

Decision-Making 129

Power of Positivity 129

The Bottom Line 130

CHAPTER 11 • DESIGNING THE SOFTWARE COLLABORATIVELY 133

Joint Application Design Concept 133

Joint Process Design and Other Design-Related Definitions 134

What Is a Joint Process Design (JPD) Session? 134

Happy Path 136

“As-Is” vs “To Be” 136

Joint Process Design Iterations 137

JPD1 137

JPD2 139

JPD3 140

JPD4 140

Keys to Successful JPDs 140

JPD Output 141

SIPOC 142

The Bottom Line 143

CHAPTER 12 • REQUIREMENTS GATHERING AND STAYING “IN THE BOX” 145

Staying in the Box 145

Customization vs In-the-Box Examples 146

Requirements 147

Out-of-the-Box Fields as Requirements 147

Requirements Link to Processes 148

Functional vs Non-functional Requirements 149

Verifying Requirements 150

Writing Good Requirements 150

Requirements Tips 150

Fit/Gap Analysis 151

Fit/Gap Spreadsheet 152

Trade-Offs 153

The Cost of Customizations 154

Cloud vs On-Premise Software 155

The Bottom Line 155

CHAPTER 13 • CONFERENCE ROOM PILOTS 157

The Purpose of a Conference Room Pilot 157

How to Organize CRPs 158

Common Elements of CRPs 159

CRP Agenda 159

Logistics 160

Issues and Questions 160

CRP Roles and Responsibilities 161

Session Leader 161

Helper/Expert 162

Business Process Owner 162

Users/Students 162

Who Not to Invite 163

CRP Place in the Overall Schedule 163

Can You Do a CRP on One Process Group at the Same Time

That You Do a JPD? 164

Entrance Criteria 164

CRP vs UAT 166

How They Are Similar 166

How They Are Different 166

What to Do Between CRP and the End of the Create Stage 167

CRP Goals 168

The Bottom Line 168

CHAPTER 14 • DEALING WITH CHALLENGES MID-PROJECT 171

Managing the Project Status 172

Status Report 172

Colors on a Status Report 173

Managing Your Budget 175

Project Pulse 177

Risks and Issues 177

Risk Register 178

Issues vs Bugs 179

Common Project Challenges 179

The Bottom Line 183

CHAPTER 15 • CUSTOMIZATIONS VS CONFIGURATIONS AND HOW YOU MANAGE THEM 185

Customizations vs Configurations 185

Customization 185

Configuration 186

Integration 186

Master Data 187

Metadata 187

Personalization 187

Reference Data 187

When to Customize vs Configure 188

Why Choose to Customize 188

Tracking Configurations 188

Configuration Tracker 189

Gold Environment 189

Lifecycle Services 189

Functional Design Documents 190

Overview 190

Modification 190

Testing 190

Development Quotation 191

Revision and Sign-off 191

Updates 191

Design Complete 191

The Development Process 192

Develop the Solution 192

Unit Test 192

Code Review 193

Functional Testing (Part 1) 193

Finishing Up 194

After Code Complete 194

Deploying the Code 194

Functional Testing (Part 2) 194

Preparing for CRP and UAT 195

The Lifecycle of a Customization 195

Managing These Tasks 195

Wrap-Up 196

The Bottom Line 197

CHAPTER 16 • DATA MIGRATION—EARLY AND OFTEN 199

Data Migration Plan 200

Proactive Cleaning 200

Before the Kickoff 201

Data Migration Tool 202

Iterations 203

Extract 206

Finding the Data 206

Extraction Tools 206

Transform 208

Mapping the Data 208

Mapping Tools 208

Transforming Mapped Data 209

Load 210

Order of Operation 210

Load Time 210

Validating the Data 210

Technical Validation 211

Business Validation 211

Functional Validation 212

Go-Live Iteration 212

The Bottom Line 213

CHAPTER 17 • ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT AND DEPLOYMENTS 215

Types of Environments 216

Developer Environments 216

Build 217

Test 217

Sandbox 218

Production 219

Environment Plan 220

Types of Releases 220

Frequency of Code Moves 222

Populating Configurations and Master Data 222

Deploying Code 223

Application Lifecycle Management 223

Environment Flow Using DevOps 224

Rollback 224

Security 225

Definitions 225

How Best to Manage 226

The Bottom Line 227

CHAPTER 18 • TESTING 229

Definitions 229

Types of Testing 230

Common Testing Terms 231

Pre-Deploy Stage Activities 232

Testing Strategy 232

Unit Test and Regression Tests 233

Developing Test Cases 234

UAT Entrance Criteria 235

UAT Exit Criteria 236

UAT Sessions 236

Purpose 236

Additional Benefits of UAT Sessions 237

UAT Roles and Responsibilities 237

Executing Your Test Plans 238

Tips for the Sessions 239

Post UAT Testing 240

Issues List 241

Process Sign-Offs 241

Scenario Recaps 241

The Bottom Line 242

CHAPTER 19 • TRAINING FOR ALL 245

Learning During Interactive Sessions 246

JPDs 246

CRPs 246

UAT 247

Learning Modalities 247

In-Person, Classroom Style 248

Remote, Synchronous Training 249

Asynchronous 251

Building Your Training Content 251

End User Training Content 251

Product Help Content 252

Microsoft Learn 253

Recording Sessions 253

Task Recorder 253

How Much to Document 254

How to Manage and Distribute Your Content 254

Learning Management Systems 255

Building Your End User Training Schedule 255

Pre-Training Learning 256

Train the Trainer 256

Synchronous Sessions 257

Advanced Concepts 257

Testing Users’ Knowledge 257

Office Hours 258

The Bottom Line 259

CHAPTER 20 • GOING LIVE 261

Go-Live Criteria 261

Cutover Plan 262

Bug Criteria 262

Data Migration and Security Criteria 263

Support Readiness 264

Training Review 264

Communication Plan 265

Go-Live Scorecard 265

Mock Cutover and Final Week Activities 266

Disaster Recovery 267

System Setup Before Cutover 267

Go/No-Go Meetings 268

When to Have It 268

Voting Criteria 268

Meeting Agenda 269

Order and Outcome of the Votes 269

Next Steps 270

Live Cutover 270

Impact of the Cutover Start Timing 271

Completing Cutover Activities 271

Rollback Plan 272

Acknowledge the Team 272

The Bottom Line 272

CHAPTER 21 • HYPERCARE 275

Go-Live Support 275

Day 1 276

Week 1 276

Project Change Champions 277

Prioritizing Issues 277

Weeks 2–4 278

First Month End 278

Duration of Hypercare 279

Role of HelpDesk 279

Sample SLA 280

Project Team Support 280

Support Levels 281

Refer Users to Training 283

Making the Transition to HelpDesk Later 283

Post Go-Live Releases 284

Planning for Future Releases 285

Hotfix Release 285

Scheduled Releases 286

Project Team Transition 287

Rolling Off the Project Team 287

Documentation 288

Expectations of Support 288

After the Transition 289

The Bottom Line 289

CHAPTER 22 • SUPPORT AND ENHANCE YOUR PROJECT 291

Support After Hypercare 291

Extending the Transition from Consulting to Support 292

Engaging Your Partner for Support 292

Microsoft and ISV Support Plans 294

After Action Review 295

Who to Invite 295

How to Run the Meeting 296

What to Do with the Feedback 297

Ongoing Releases 297

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Release Cadence 297

Release Testing 297

When to Schedule Your Releases 298

What to Include in Releases 299

Future Enhancements 299

New Functionality 299

Usability 300

Guardrails 301

Business Intelligence 301

Incorporating Dynamics Data into Your Daily Business 302

Integrations 302

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence 302

Calculating Return on Investment 303

ROI Checkpoints 304

The Bottom Line 305

CHAPTER 23 • BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER 307

Align Stage 307

Define Stage 308

Create Stage 311

Deploy Stage 313

Empower Stage 314

Additional Resources 315

The Bottom Line 315

APPENDIX • THE BOTTOM LINE 317

Chapter 1: Stages of an Implementation Overview 317

Chapter 2: What to Do Before You Begin a Project 318

Chapter 3: Four Keys to Consider When Buying an ERP or CRM Solution 320

Chapter 4: How to Evaluate and Buy Business Application Software 322

Chapter 5: Organizing Your Team for Success and Project Governance 323

Chapter 6: Sprints and Tools Needed to Run Your Project 325

Chapter 7: Change Management Throughout Your Project 326

Chapter 8: Organizing Your Business by Processes 328

Chapter 9: Independent Software Vendors—Filling Gaps and Managing Partnerships 329

Chapter 10: Factors for a Successful Project Kickoff 331

Chapter 11: Designing the Software Collaboratively 332

Chapter 12: Requirements Gathering and Staying “In the Box” 334

Chapter 13: Conference Room Pilots 335

Chapter 14: Dealing with Challenges Mid-Project 337

Chapter 15: Customizations vs Configurations and How You Manage Them 338

Chapter 16: Data Migration—Early and Often 340

Chapter 17: Environment Management and Deployments 341

Chapter 18: Testing 343

Chapter 19: Training for All 344

Chapter 20: Going Live 346

Chapter 21: Hypercare 347

Chapter 22: Support and Enhance Your Project 349

Chapter 23: Bringing It All Together 350

Glossary 353

Index 369