ERP Implementation & Methodology

Over the course of creating my videos, I have created a number of demos, and massive amount of code (well, massive in relation to the duration of videos). So, with Microsoft’s agreement, I have published all of the demonstrated C# and PowerShell code to my GitHub repository.

Over the past month or so I was very busy with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Managed Service for Partners . One part was in line of my work, where we were busy around the clock bringing our solution to Managed Service. The other part was creating a handful of videos for Microsoft to promote Managed Service.

A couple of days ago, at a Sure Step 2010 training at Sundsgården, Helsingborg, Sweden, while students were preparing to take the exam, one of the students asks me where she can download Sure Step 2010. I give her the link, but she tells me: “No, that’s Sure Step 2012, I’d like to download 2010” .

I missed this by ten days, but it’s not exactly yesterday’s news yet. Microsoft has released a content update for Sure Step 2010, bringing some new content for NAV, AX, GP and CRM, and also introducing some functional changes to Sure Step application.

Another Sure Step course is over, this time in Århus, Denmark . I love and hate teaching this course, because it always makes me wonder why I need this, and why in the Earth I am doing this trainer’s job. And then makes me happy that I do and eager to do it again as soon as possible.

One of the biggest obstacles of the ERP projects is the language. Not the spoken language, such as Spanish or German, but the lingo of the business, of the branch, of the company. The consultants speak their lingo. The customer speaks theirs. Especially in the early stages, the projects can fall apart on understanding each other.

Almost exactly two years ago, incited by a comment from a reader, I wrote an article in defense of Sure Step: Read My Lips: Why? . The point was: is Sure Step a new methodology, or is it just a wheel reinvented?

Design is one of a kind. Other phases in Sure Step are understood and accepted as good and necessary. But design, do we really do that? Is it really necessary? Who’s going to pay for it? Does the customer really need all those documents? Instead of writing documents, you could have it developed in the same, or less time.

Service Providers (or colloquially partners ) often refrain from undertaking organization or process changes during implementation projects of Microsoft Dynamics solutions. And it comes as no surprise: there are many risks related to it, and customizations are taken as a more traditional approach.

Sometimes the Degree of Fit might seem like comparing apples and oranges. With 90 extremely detailed fits, and 10 high-level gaps, the degree of fit seems high, but it isn’t. 90 extremely detailed gaps, and 10 high-level fits, make the degree of fit seem low.