Episodes

#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 produc...

#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 Sin...

#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 I've just registered for Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas fro...

#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 ...

#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...

#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...

#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...

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 co...

#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 t...

#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...

#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 Custom...

#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 s...

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'...

#102. Bruce Sithole's team at 265 Mechanix built a Power Portal application for a business to business lender that earned some serious kudos for his customer. Find out how in this episode of Amazing Applications. We also cover: Starting your own Microsoft partner business What is takes to achieve FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect Which is better: FTRSA award or MVP award? Building amazing Power Power applications What night to release a new deployment Using feature flags in our appl...

#101. DynamicsCon starts next week. Lipi Sarkar is presenting two sessions at DynamicsCon and joins me to share the highlights from her presentations as well as her book, Build a Digital Future. Resources Register for DynamicsCon Lipi Sarkar on LinkedIn Samit Saini and Eric McKinney on LinkedIn Building a Digital Future by Lipi Sarkar and Vinny (Amazing affiliate link) South Coast Summit conference Scottish Summit conference Support the showCONNECT 🌏 Amazing Applications 🟦 Customery on Linked...

#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? ...

#99. We all know that good form design is important especially when we're building model-driven Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps. But what actually makes a good form design? Join me as Mary Ann Castro shares her secrets of effective form design from her upcoming presentation at DynamicsCon. Resources Mary Ann Castro on LinkedIn Register for DynamicsCon Special mention to Andrew Butenko, Amey Holden and Dian Taylor I've just registered for Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas from 3...

#98. Hey everyone, Dian Taylor is here! Dian is a two-time MVP and a director of pre-sales at RSM US. She's presenting, 'Getting Started with Power Virtual Agents' at DynamicsCon on 20 September. So I invited Dian onto the Amazing Apps show to tells us all about Power Virtual Agents and give us a sneak peek into her presentation. We discuss the summer weather in Florida and the easy life of pre-sales as well as some serious topics such as how amazing chatbots can provide an awesome customer exp...

#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...

#96. I continue the deeper dive into the role of the Product Owner with advanced Product Owner questions. This episode covers: Can the product owner role be combined with scrum master or developer? Which product owner certification that I recommend? Making decisions about the product backlog, Whether the Product Owner needs to be technical, What's the difference between a product owner and a project manager? Whether the product owner has to accept the developers' increments in the sprint ...

#95. I continue the deeper dive into the role of the Product Owner, who is responsible for maximizing the impact of the application that the scrum team is building. And I think our product owners in Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects have a couple of twists compared to product owners on other scrum teams. This episode covers 10 myths about Product Owners. Resources Customery Academy Amazing Applications podcast page on LinkedIn Amazing Applications podcast page on Podchaser Scrum for Mic...

#94. I dive deeper into getting into the right mindset to build applications. In the last episode, we looked at ten potential candidates for the product owner role in our scrum teams building Power Platform and Dynamics 365 applications. In this episode, we're going to continue the product owner topic by helping the product owner set a product goal. This episode covers: The 2020 edition of the Scrum Guide's reference to Product Goals. Where Product Goals sit in the overall goal hierarchy. Br...

#93. I dive deeper into getting into the right mindset to build applications, including using the Scrum agile approach. This episode covers: Why the Product Owner is the most critical role in the Scrum team. The accountability of the Product Owner. Which type of person within an organisation makes the best Product Owner. Resources Product Mastery - from good to great product ownership, by Geoff Watts Agile Product Management with Scrum, by Roman Pichler Professional Scrum Product Owner, by ...

#92. Join me with Gail Mercer-MacKay, the founder and CEO of Mercer-MacKay. They have a unique position in the Microsoft ecosystem: they help Microsoft partners clarify their marketing message and produce compelling digital content that inspires Microsoft customers to take action. Our discussion covers: Why Mercer-MacKay decided to Deploy Microsoft business applications internally. Gail's perspective on choosing a Microsoft business applications partner. The process of building the Minimal V...