Power Platform | Boosting app & workflow development

After finishing again a series of Design Thinking workshops I thought it was time to share some results to help you get started in your individual discussions challenging: What would be the impact of low-code in your company´s digital transformation journey?

#1 What´s the perfect recipe on attendee´s roles when staffing such a workshop?

I´d argue to ask at least multiple parties to join an event such as this, to ensure capturing as many individual thoughts around your company´s digital journey as possible and get a complete picture around current status. So business employees as well as IT savyy business employees and IT developers should all become part of such initiative. You might say, too many folks will ruin or turn down the results of the recipe? I´d challenge this if it isn´t already about time to talk about a joint adventure. Digital transformation is about everyone. Think about those who might not yet be onboarded, due to not having a Desktop PC or tablet. I am always reminded of a good MVP friend of mine Keith Whatling telling his story about front-line workers who´s daily job isn´t PC-related, though digital infused and does have a significant impact on company´s customer satisfaction rating.

Above visual shows why – when I am asked on a recipe – I´d say invite all three (if not four) categories to a workshop like this. Results won´t be the same, if any of these parties is missed. It demonstrates where we´re coming from in many enterprise companies. The current amount of developers being low compared to the potential existing around optimization. And optimization is around apps, procedures, flows and many more.

When entering the low-code development and therefore Microsoft´s Fusion Teams initiative your company might recognize the amount of IT savvy Business employees who immediately start being developers. Finally, Citizen pro developers building the bridge between your traditional IT development department and Citizen developers you recognize lowered costs and more agile digital transformation. Did you taught everyone to become a developer? Of course not, you simply enabled them being one by using Power Platform low-code tools.

This is due to IT and business leaders facing various challenges. Above visual outlines the most frequently discussed around workshops I am part of. To the right side, you do see typical arguments IT and IT savyy employees will come up with when kicking off such a workshop. The left side represents, what I hear most from Business employees describing the actual status of their digital transformation journey projects. No surprise the goal is to find a solution for all this. A solution which also fits into the current time as pandemic has an impact on software development in general. And even afterwards company´s are challenged with a new way of remote work and processes.

#2 What´s top „blocker“ from IT of not willing to host or staff a workshop like this?

This is all about Shadow IT. Citizen development is high-risk on data leakage, broken compliance and uncontrolled employee behavior. Why should I as pro developer talk about using low-code tools, if I am familiar and practicing pro-code from beginning of my Software developer career?

#3 What´s top „blocker“ from Business employees of not willing to host or staff a workshop like this?

This is to help IT folks only getting finally rid of the huge development backlog. This is all about transforming me and my role into a Software developer. If I wanted to become such, I would have started a different career. Why should I attend to figure out that in the end someone would tell me I could be replaced by an automated process, a digital assistant or something else?

You see it is not an easy task to convince parties to become part of a Design Thinking workshop to discuss company´s digital transformation journey. Above visual summarizes both measurable as unqualified benefits that Power Platform and Azure could result in. If you want to read about them in detail, please have a look here.

#4 Importance to define combined goal(s)

Before running a combined workshop like this, ask yourself around how to collect information around possible goals. A survey might help to collect information around current status. What´s top of mind for each party? Do you find similarities in the answers provided and can define combined goals that in the end helps everyone to sign-up for an event like this? Could you help kicking off the imagination by providing examples from the past? Those might not be in the context of low-code, but helped your company´s performance in general. Sometimes a single combined goal is better than multiple.

#5 Ensure results can be easily tracked

Finally, before running such an event, think about how you could easily track the results and ensure everyone stays engaged and energized afterwards. Yes, low-code Power Platform tools could help here as well. Microsoft Teams could keep conversations rolling, integrated apps and reports could help tracking results of side projects initiated. I´ve seen IT teams sharing their experience from using Jira and other planning tools to track their traditional software projects. While in a combined workshop everyone agreed on the concept being beneficial, the tools used for low-code in the end where low-code tools.

#6 Ensure an atmosphere of imagination

Best ideas can only come up in an atmosphere where imagination is possible. Resolve #2 and #3 before the workshop, not within the workshop. You may need help or budget for this. Don´t hesitate to look after services and support. Internally as well as externally. Internal you should have a sponsor for this. I´ve seen company´s running this as official „Hackathons“ once or twice a year. They´ve combined such initiatives with winning prices – which of course was a motivator as well. Ensure there´s a budget that can be used for this as well as driving at least one project out of it to a final result in production. Seeing „your baby“ growing up an running is inspiring on its own.

As you may get from above, I again enjoyed the workshop series with customers and won´t stop to endorse Design Thinking workshops like this. Think again about the potential that was outlined in my first visual. You can be part of this journey, that´s for sure. Until then, …