Architecture Episodes

#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, d...

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'...

#91. Join me with Reza Rad, the founder and CEO of RADACAD providing Power BI training and consultancy services to thousands of Microsoft customers and partners every year. Reza's list of achievements is pretty embarrassing. He's not just a 10 times Microsoft MVP. He's a Microsoft Regional Director. He's written over 15 books on data analytics, in addition to dozens of courses on RADACAD. He's been a speaker at dozens of industry conferences and used all of that experience to organize and host t...

#89. Join me with Mohammad Mohsin Khalid. And he's the founder, CEO and chief architect at Imperium Dynamics. He and his team built a Power Portal to support a million constituents booking their COVID test appointments, and they did it in less than 100 hours. Our discussion covers: The physical logistics of drive-up COVID testing for thousands of people. Why custom scheduling was used instead of the inbuilt scheduling functionality of the Dynamics Healthcare Accelerator on Power Platform The...

#72. Michael Nunes asks, "When multiple systems are being delivered by different parties, I find that we have to design the details upfront, then use agile for the delivery of the Dynamics 365 systems. Is this your experience too?" Michael's question has two layers that we address in this episode: upfront design and team composition. Upfront design is based on three assumptions: We can know all the requirements upfront. We can design all the components upfront. There won't be any changes. ...

#49. I'm joined by Gus Gonzalez and Joel Lindstrom to discuss the role of solution architects in agile teams implementing Microsoft Business Applications. We chill out on the mics and discuss: Why weren't Joel and Guz at MVP this year? Intrinsic and extrinsic solution architects What is the role of a solution architect today? Resource and delivery co-ordination Go-to person and a face for the developers Can a solution design document be dangerous Is the blueprint the new solution design ...

#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 consist...

#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? Winning Agile Projects Winning Agile Projects is a five-week program for 10 partner professionals involved in Dyn...

#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,...