Requirements Episodes

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 sec...

#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...

120. Hamish Sheild describes his five step Solution Mapping framework for using design thinking principles to define the requirements for complex Power Platform applications. 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? Creat...

#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 | ht...

#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...

#100. Are you looking for better ways to manage your Dynamics 365 and Power Platform requirements in Azure DevOps? Join me and Dani Kahil as we explore what it takes to master your requirements. Why use Azure DevOps to manage requirements? Structuring requirements into epics, features and user stories Using a definition of ready to manage your backlog Is requirements approval an anti-pattern? Using different types of items in Azure DevOps Choosing an Azure DevOps process: Scrum or Agile? ...

#97. I share five reasons why I think you should avoid analysis in advance when you're building Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications. My five top reasons: Peak ignorance. You're analyzing the requirements during the period when your stakeholders know least about Microsoft business applications and your analysts know least about their needs. Priority categorization. Your requirement specification doesn't order the requirements by business value. Over-engineering. Your requirements are...

#61. Mark Llewellyn, Director of Technology at Osmosys Software Solutions in London asks, "How can you be sure you've captured all the requirements?" Traditional approaches, like Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step, pretend that we can capture all the requirements upfront at the start of a project before we've started development. Upfront requirements analysis doesn't work. You can't capture requirements by writing them down, and you shouldn't try to uncover requirements before your users know somet...

#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...

#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. Re...

#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 ...