Dynamics D365 Rapid Growth
Dynamics D365 projects have grown in quantity and scale quite dramatically in recent years, this has resulted in some rapid growth within the Microsoft Partner community with new entrants having varying degrees of ERP experience it has created demand for an increasing amount of D365 project assurance.
D365 Project assurance is an area we have been heavily involved with over the years, our long standing relationship with Microsoft ERP has seen to that and with a business focus not purely on new business licensing acquisition we have often been called upon to provide assurance to projects that are showing signs of stress.
Resource Constraints
Rapid growth is often difficult to sustain without there been some negative impact on resource availability and quality. Consultants need several implementations under their belt in our view before they start to become proficient in the art of delivering ERP projects.
Some of the larger partners with their accountancy backgrounds have a tendency to employ graduates straight from higher education, technically adept they may be but practical business skills take time to develop.
Consultants without experience and exposure to multiple ERP implementations may be learning on the job, efficient and cost effective if you are a consultancy but for a business paying for these services maybe its not that beneficial.
Efficient implementations we find are best led by experienced personnel, this de-risks projects with consultants having already having ‘seen it, done it and got the t-shirt’.
Where a Dynamics user might feel that they are not getting the right level of support from their Microsoft Partner an independent review will help qualify this feeling, D365 project assurance can help steer projects back on course as well provide re-assurance that the programme team have done everything they can to ensure success.
Project Review & Assurance
Conducting a review of your ERP project is not necessarily all about producing a negative report on the performance of your implementation team or Dynamics MS Partner.
Issues could sit with either party, our experience at AX Software has often revealed shared responsibilities for why a project needs reviewing in the first place and that could go as far back to the requirements gathering process. This is why we place such emphasis on gathering all the requirements and having those looked at with experienced eyes.
We recognise that the path to successfully pulling your project out of what looks like a terminal nose dive is where you can hit the restart and rebuild the relationship with your MS Partner.
Pragmatically identifying the issues, creating a detailed plan which considers the tasks and the resources you have to deliver resolutions for them and validating the proposed solution and timelines is a must. It can often involve difficult decisions regards budget either extending it or making sensible exceptions which impact what deliverables you get at the end of the project.
Starting afresh with a new D365 implementation partner is always an option, but invariably this will incur repeated effort which for users can be extremely frustrating and for budgets quite painful.
If you can, resolving the issues you are facing with your implementation partner can be the cheapest option and one that we can help you with from a balanced and highly experienced perspective
D365 Project Assurance
Rather than waiting for potential issues to materialise some savvy users are assuring projects independently, taking the approach that preventative action is more cost effective in the long term than risking having to be reactive at a later stage.
Project assurance is typically conducted at key milestone stages, often an activity conducted between the MS Partner and Client it assess how well the previous stage went and whether the business is ready to enter the next stage.
However on large programmes or projects it’s sometimes advisable to conduct this with the presence of an independent experienced organisation. AX Software were engaged to perform a similar task with Thames Valley Police, who in partnership with Sussex and Surrey Police Authorities were implementing a heavily integrated solution for 18000 users.
With limited experience of business system change, clients can all too easy to be railroaded down a path of everything will come right in the next stage, but large projects are like tankers at sea, they need huge turning circles with experienced eyes piloting the turn in a timely fashion.
You are after all putting your entire business or organisation into the hands of a primary supplier, which is a risky strategy when thought about logically.
Ask yourself the question as to how confident you would be of your supplier telling you that they were struggling to deliver within the planned timeline or that the issue is theirs with resource.
AX Software, with many years of successful ERP delivery experience (more than 20 years with Microsoft Dynamics), can help you set and manage assurance check points right from the outset and demonstrate a level of diligence that’s worthy of the investment you are making in your new business systems.