EY Kalman, also known as the CRM Ninja, joins me in this episode of Scrum Dynamics to reveal the critical factors behind the success of his Dynamics CRM project at Orbis Investment Advisory.

So what were his critical success factors?

You’ll learn

Listen in, as he reveals how:

• Orbis selected Dynamics CRM as their CRM platform despite a long history of developing complex, bespoke applications in-house.

•  They used a hybrid waterfall-agile approach, which was a slowed down version of an agile approach, because they were replacing a complex legacy system that required a lot of integrations. They practiced daily meetings but didn’t have time-boxed iterations.

• There were only six people in the core CRM team and the project took over two years to complete. The extended team was a global one with team members contributing to the project from around the world.

• EY’s super users and stakeholders were heavily involved during the development. Super users were testing new features and stakeholders were providing their feedback and setting business priorities. Business support, both bottom-up and top-down, was vital to Orbis’s successful CRM project.

• EY used PivotalTracker as his product backlog and requirements management tool.

• Agile is not just for software development or application configuration. They took an agile approach to migrating data into their Dynamics CRM system.

• Orbis chose a big bang release rather than releasing iterations incrementally either by feature or geographically.

EY Kalman

• EY Kalman on LinkedIn

• CRM Ninja on Twitter

• CRM Ninja channel on YouTube

• CRM Ninja blog

Resources

• Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps - my free mini-course to help you understand the benefits of using an agile approach to implementing Microsoft Business Applications.

• PivotalTracker - an agile project management tool, free for teams up to 3.