How to not have a failed Power Platform roll-out

Have you been hearing the word "governance" being thrown around a lot lately in the Power Platform world? Are you confused by what this actually refers to? This is not specific to Power Platform-- this concept has been around for a long time. Governance is used by organizations to ensure that software development aligns with business goals and complies with internal or external regulations. It links the business strategy with the IT strategy and key initiatives. It aims to eliminate friction between groups with conflicting priorities.

I have certainly not been in this space as long as some, but I have been working in Business Applications deployments, specifically for Dynamics, since 2015. I have seen Dynamics CRM shift from On-Premises to CRM Online, from CRM Online to Dynamics 365, and from Dynamics 365 to the Power Platform. With every shift, I have seen the scale, complexity, and scope of the business problems it is solving for, drastically increase, year after year. Long gone are the days of centralized IT having full reign, xRM is dead, and the time of having simply dev, test, and prod environments has long-since ended. We no longer work on a server-based or cloud application - this is an entire platform. This is an ecosystem, and organizations are still working to adapt and catch up.

With the Power Platform, we have just about any capability you can think of, and it is ever-growing. We can ask questions of our data in natural language, build an app based off of a drawing, automate our business processes… what an amazing time to be in technology!

Alas, there is a flip side to this. Common pain points for IT include:

• Thousands of stale apps and flows in the default environment with no understanding of what they were built for
• Dozens of orphaned flows when the owner leaves the organization
• A plethora of Dataverse for Teams environments that were mistakenly created

IT is not alone here. Common pain points for the business include:

• Not knowing where to start - What is this platform for? What are its use cases? What are its capabilities?
• Wanting to build, but not knowing how.
• Building, but getting blocked when they do not know where to reach out for help
• Users and developers not wanting to learn a new platform

Many times, this culminates in failed user adoption, leading the business to question why they invested in Power Platform in the first place. Why does this happen? It comes down to lack of strategy ahead of, during, and post-deployment. It comes down to a lack of governance and organizational change management.

500 million new apps will be created in the next 5 years.* This is more than all apps that have been built in the last 40 years-- and 70% of these new applications will use low-code or no-code technologies.** As we say here in Fargo, uffda!

Alright, we get it. So what can we do about this? If you are starting from scratch:

1. Download our Adoption workbook. Follow it. This already has a template for a plan laid out for you! While you're at it, check out the other resources on this page from our product group :)
   1. If your organization has a change management expert, get them involved asap. The Power Platform enables digital transformation of an organization as a whole-- this isn't just a simple IT project.
   2. Consider why you are rolling out Power Platform in the first place and keep this in mind during the entire journey. Use this to define your strategy.
   3. Are there industry regulations that you need to follow? Factor this into your governance plan. 
      1. Check out our governance best practices.

1. Train: We have targeted certifications and learning paths suitable for makers and developers alike, but also learn how to administer. Your organization will especially need the latter to be successful.
   
   1. For everyone: Power Platform Fundamentals
   2. Makers: Power Platform App Maker, Power Platform Functional Consultant
   3. Developers: Power Platform Developer, Power Platform RPA Developer
   4. Administrators: Administer Microsoft Power Platform

If you are in the "clean-up" phase:

1. Make sure your Center of Excellence (CoE) kit is up-to-date. Setup all components, and specifically Set up clean-up for orphaned objects.

1. Take the Power Apps Maturity Assessment. This will help you identify areas of improvement for your organization.
   1. Favorites of mine include Establishing an environment strategy-- on that note, make sure you understand the concept of the default environment
   1. Depending on the level that you are assessed at, then identify that level within the Power CAT Adoption Maturity Model and implement the suggested opportunities. While you're at it, review the opportunities in the preceding levels to ensure that those have also already been followed within your organization.

1. From here, it is never too late to come up with a strategy. Review the Adoption workbook and follow it.
   1. While you're at it, review our governance best practices.

1. It's also never too-late to upskill. See above.
   
   1. If you are still trying to get users to adopt the platform, consider incorporating recurring Lunch and Learns. Keep them high level initially and start with functionality and use-cases-- as more interest is generated, then you can get more technical. You can also use these sessions as teasers for more in-depth training. 

This platform will only continue to grow-- as will the number of floating apps and flows in your deployment. Get a handle on it, and get governance into place. Your entire organization will thank you. 

Need more help? If you have a premier/Unified contract, reach out to your account team for our service offerings catalog.

Skylar Shonblom

* IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry 2020 Predictions. October 2019.

**Gartner, Forecast Analysis: Low Code development Technologies. January, 2021.