Here’s the thing when it comes to being a Dynamics 365 consultant: no two days are ever the same. One day, you’re going over reports and charts with a client. The next, you’re doing database work and updating product data. Few careers offer so much variety, which is all the more reason to draw on both functional and technical skill sets as part of your career development. And while dynamics 365 consultant mostly worked with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the same is true for other Dynamics applications, including Dynamics ERP.
Improving Processes with Functional Consulting
- Defining the process (how it is done now)
- Measuring process performance (establishing a base line)
- Stabilising the process (removing variation)
- Improving the process (how it should be done)
- Ensuring that process is maintained through measurement and management
By implementing integrated, efficient and flexible improvement processes, Dynamics 365 consultant ensures that our clients are able to adjust to rapidly changing marketplace, reduce delays and enhance customer satisfaction, encourage collaboration with partners and customers and optimise utilisation of resources.
Managing End-to-End Process as Technical Consulting
Like functional consultants, technical experts bring their own range of expertise to the table: they understand data, development, integrations, cloud deployment principles, and more. There are lots of technical details to manage, which means it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae and forget about the big picture.
Recognise that the fundamentals remain the same, the details vary. Contrary to popular belief, the fundamentals of software development have been known for many years. Dynamics 365 consultant need to perform requirements engineering. They need to model. They need to write code. They need to test. They need to perform change control. They get the picture. Every successful software organisation will have a similar set of processes but the way that their organisation brings them in and how they implement them will differ. Dynamics 365 consultant requirements process may be slightly different than their competitors, but their will both have one that will generally do the same sort of thing.
Dynamics 365 consultant need more than one process. They wouldn't run a project team of thirty people the same way that they would a team of three people. Nor would they run an outsourcing project the same way that they run a project developed by a co-located team. Nor would a Dynamics 365 consultant run a data warehouse project the same way that they’d run a .NET application. A Dynamics 365 consultant need different processes, or at least different flavors of process, for different situations. Use the right process for the job.
Balancing the Technical and the Functional
Think for a moment about all of the different roles Dynamics 365 consultant might need to play as a consultant on any given day. The client will lean on them in all sorts of ways: they may want consultant to be a project manager or business analyst one day, only to ask them a development and data migration questions the next. But what do all of these tasks have in common? At the end of the day, they’re all necessary if the consultant want to help the client achieve their goals.
By understanding both the functional and technical aspects of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 consultant is being able to offer clients both back-end expertise as well as big picture strategic assistance. The more they manage to diversify own skill set, the more of an asset they’ll be to their own clients.