#161. Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner: every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated.

Because no one wins overestimated projects...

Mentioned in this episode:

Estimating Business Apps: EOFY25 offer

My Estimating Business Apps course will help you up level up your agile practice and answer those two frequent questions: 'How long is it going to take?' and 'How much is it going to cost?'. Normally priced at U$199, it’s designed to give you full confidence when scoping and sizing Dynamics 365 and Power Platform work. Estimating Business Apps is just U$50 if you go Pro before 30 June 2025. That’s a $149 saving to help you finish the (Australian financial) year stronger – and smarter. Visit: https://events.humanitix.com/estimating-usd?discountcode=EOFY50 Don’t miss your chance to master the complete estimation process and quote your work like a pro.

#160. Hamish Sheild is a Microsoft MVP and Power Platform consultant specialising in applying Design Thinking practices to our apps and projects to make them more human-centred. Hamish and I discuss the different activities and artifacts we've experimented with before starting the delivery phase of our Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects.

Join us as we discuss:

03:43 Design thinking exercises and goal setting

08:45 Inclusion of developers in the discovery phase

09:48 Importance of day in the life sessions

11:59 Exploration of design sprints

17:10 Creating customer and user journey maps

18:48 Utilizing user story maps for clarity

24:21 The role of prototyping in projects

25:11 Developing solution blueprints with Dynamics 365

30:18 Size and refinement of initial product backlog

32:02 Establishing environments

32:48 Business process maps

35:35 Crafting stakeholder maps for project success

HAMISH SHEILD

• Hamish Sheild on LinkedIn
• AppRising
• Designing Business Applications

RESOURCES

• Avion for user story mapping
• StoriesOnBoard for user story mapping
• Miro for visual collaboration

RECOMMENDED EPISODES

• 130 Sprint 1 is Done!
• 120 Defining Requirements for Complex Power Apps with Hamish Sheild

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#159. Should you use a traditional, waterfall approach to build Power Platform apps?

In this episode, I break down six situations when you might be tempted to use a waterfall method and share my thoughts on whether that's really the best approach.

00:11 Everyone should try waterfall at least once.

02:18 When to adopt a waterfall approach

02:53 #1 Predictable and well-defined requirements

04:19 #2 Regulated industries

05:49 #3 Fixed-price contracts

06:59 #4 Small or simple projects

08:02 #5 No agile experience

08:59 #6 Lots of dependencies

10:09 Recap `

• Estimating Agile Business Apps: learn how to quickly, accurately and confidently estimate how long it'll take and how much it'll cost to build your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 app.
• Cynefin Model: learn how to approach different problems from simple to complex.
• Successful Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps: learn the Scrum framework, prepare for certification and discover my proven practices for successfully applying Scrum for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
• Team Topologies: Matthew Skelton discusses how different team topologies can reduce the impact of dependencies across an organisation.