Learning the Power Platform – The Platform is only One of the P’s

When a company needs to decide on tools of the future, software tools that will catapult them forward, the Power Platform requires serious consideration. People, Process, Projects and the Platform come together to establish the future of business systems and create opportunities for those businesses to thrive.

When a company or organization finds itself at point in time that they need to transform, maybe what gave them the competitive edge in the past is no longer enough. Or perhaps over time operational costs have increased and the “way we have always done it” no longer cuts the mustard.

The workforce has changed, and the skills needed to take your business into the future must evolve. The products that worked yesterday may be obsolete tomorrow. Like all transformations in industry, we need to look at our current tools, processes, people and what will generate profit in the future and reduce operational cost now.

Earlier this year I was reading a book by Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine. In The Inevitable (2016) he looks ahead to the next 30 years and highlights 12 technology trends that will forever change the way we work, communicate and learn. One of the things that stuck with me in reading this book is “A platform is a foundation created by a firm that lets other firms build products and services upon it”.

Lately I have been thinking about how the Microsoft Power Platform is changing and enabling the way we do business, how it is a platform as described by Kelly to build products and services.

More than ever silos need to be broken down amongst the people within organizations. Cross-Functional teams need to be assembled and tasked with solving problems that are costing the company in wasted time and resources.

The days of IT departments being a hand brake on the business need to stop. I have seen IT departs run like little fiefdoms, of power and control, belittling and using fear with business stakeholders, blocking access to innovation, because “oh it’s another thing we need to learn and support”.

IT departments need to evolve or be replaced. Stakeholders want and need access to software tools that empower them. IT needs to add business value by enabling the business with modern software tools, that reduce operational costs, while adding massive business value.

Companies need to enable, equip, and empower Citizen Developers to build front line applications that solve business problems and automate repetitive mundane work within the organization. These Citizen Developers will be experts, working at the coal face, on the front line and in the trenches of the business in their day to day jobs.

Individuals who understand the challenges of their day to day roles and have ideas about how to solve them. They need to be empowered with software tools, equipped with digital guide rails and be allowed to create practical solutions to their problems.

Job Titles should be dispensed with in this new way of creating solutions. Rather than top-down ideas, ideas should be harvested from every area of the business, with high value paid to those that live and breathe the work every day.

Senior Leadership buy-in is needed if this transformation is to take place as people who are not traditionally considered technologists will now start to learn and get involved in building software applications to save time and create business value.

Architects will be needed to empower people with the right guidelines, to make sure that overall company requirements are being met such as integration, data architecture, security, and data loss prevention as well as establishing design guidelines and best practices.

Product Owners will need to work with the various stakeholders to maintain focus and to see that deliverables are met to create business value. IT Support & Governance will also play a vital enabling role to safeguard corporate data and support for the applications built.

As more line of business applications are built and supported within the organization, Fast time to value will be expected and will map the way for ongoing automation, simplification and repeatability of business processes.

I have found that bringing together a small team that sets up as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) is a starting point for company-wide innovation. This CoE will create community, education and resources to allow the company to grow into full app development maturity.

Practical events such as Hackathons, Minimal Viable Product – MVP in a day, Lunch and Learns, showcases from app creators showing what they are creating or what they want to create.

Processes to capture ideas and iterate on the apps that have been built as MVPs, moving them into production and company-wide supportability. As the CoE matures, an end to end BizDevOps process can be constructed to allow for ongoing app creation.

An App Factory that provides continued business innovation and app development, using mobile devices, APIs and data in the cloud. Part of setting up the right systems and processes will be using the right tools; such as Agile, Design Thinking and Change Management.

As one looks at the organization for the opportunity to innovate, any intensive paper processes will be a starting point. Clipboard type tasks, checklists, registers and rosters, any day to day function that is repeated over and over again with a level of predictability are app creation opportunities.

Carry out time studies to measure how much time could be saved if a process could be digitized, optimized and automated. Look to replace “Forms” with a digital equivalent. Create a backlog of projects that can be delegated to Product Owners, look across the company for low hanging fruit, projects that will enable quick wins and high impact and effect the business broadly.

Look for projects that can be moved into production within thirty days. Keep an eye out for ways to save time and digitize the mundane aspects of business so people can focus on innovation in their role. Ask the following questions.

• What app creations will have positive staff impact?

• What apps could be built that will lead to positive customer impact?

• What apps can be built that will lead to positive profit impact?

Finally, that brings me to the last P, for the platform. A platform to enable business citizens to build many applications. Microsoft has taken almost two decades of product innovation and distilled that into the Power Platform with artificial intelligence built into its core on the Common Data Service (CDS).

The Power Platform has three core tools that enable business to Analyze their data using Power BI, Act on date with PowerApps and Automate business processes with Flow. Power Platform integrates existing data sets, supports enterprise-scale, including access control, security and data loss prevention.

It provides multiple accessible interfaces for all types of devices both inside the organization as well as customer-facing.  And it does this with tools that enable anyone with an idea, a problem, or a solution to create the future of doing business in their company.