ERP Implementation & Methodology

Many of my Sure Step students have asked me if there are any practice tests, like MeasaureUp, available for Sure Step exam (MB5-858). I used to say “no”, but that has just changed. I somehow missed this, and I am not exactly sure when it appeared, but there is an online knowledge assessment tool which can help you decide whether to take the exam, or to prepare better instead.

If your Degree of Fit is just not there, or the balance between it and the budgetary estimate is not favorable, the risk that project will exceed the budget or not meet the requirements is high, but you might still decide to go on. In fact, most consultants often do, choosing to fight the odds.

Fit Gap Analysis is one of the core activities of the Sure Step. It’s in fact so important that on most projects this activity should be done twice: the first time you do it on a very high level just get a quick overview of customer’s processes and requirements, and the second time you dive deep down into details to figure out everything.

Houston Neal of Software Advice is running a survey about the ERP implementation strategies , with the goal of identifying the best one. The survey is very short, it will take only a couple of minutes and is aimed at helping future customers choosing the best strategy.

Requirements and process review is one of the decision accelerators in the Diagnostic phase of the Sure Step, aimed at gaining deeper understanding of customer’s business processes, and documenting high level requirements, as well as possible implementation issues.

The Sure Step season seems to have started in its fullest for me – it is the second time this year already that I’m delivering the Sure Step course, this time in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I must say that I truly enjoy it.

One of the drawbacks of being a freelancer is a slight risk to learn a bit late about anything new. Once upon a time, when I was still blogging actively, I made sure I was the first to blog about something new, as long as it relates to Sure Step.

Today at Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, during his keynote speech, Doug Kennedy, Vice President Dynamics Partner Team, announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step to all Microsoft Dynamics partners.

When implementing NAV in manufacturing companies, I’ve sometimes heard complaints that the type of manufacturing supported in NAV doesn’t fit the customer needs. And sometimes that’s completely true. NAV supports discreet manufacturing, and it handles it pretty well.

I’ve seen a few projects where customers said they didn’t need contingency, because they decided to adjust the budget as changes happen. How does this sound to you? To me, this sounds pretty bad, because there is an important distinction between adjusting the budget based on change requests and consuming the contingency reserve.