Podcast appearances and mentions of neil benson

Stories about the stuff we collect and what happens to it after we're gone. Neil Benson was a photographer and salvage artist who believed that “trash is simply a failure of imagination.” When he died in 2023, Benson left behind a house filled floor-to-ceiling with his collections of typewriters, Hawaiian shirts and a jacket covered with hundreds of buttons. That jacket reminded storyteller Neil Bardhan of his father's collection of political campaign buttons and childhood trips to antique stores and a motel-room flea market.

#156. Neil Benson dives into the essentials of continuously improving Scrum practices in this episode of the Amazing Apps podcast. Drawing on the book "Mastering Professional Scrum" by Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl, Neil outlines critical areas for team success, such as creating valuable products and understanding organizational influences. He emphasizes five core capabilities needed for continuous improvement: teaching, facilitation, coaching, technical excellence, and servant leadership.Neil discusses the continuous improvement process recommended by Ockerman and Reindl, which includes self-assessment questionnaires and root cause analysis to address team issues. He highlights the importance of the Scrum pillars—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—and shows how sprint events like planning and review foster a culture of empiricism, allowing teams to run experiments and refine their practices based on real-world outcomes.Celebrating the traits of high-performing scrum teams, Neil underscores the significance of being cross-functional, self-managing, and collaborative. He touches upon practices that bolster collaboration within these teams, such as backlog refinement and pair programming, while also stressing the freedom scrum teams have to define their workflows within Scrum guidelines.Neil also addresses common challenges, such as the absence of key roles during refinement sessions, and recommends using the Five Whys technique to tackle root causes. He provides practical tips like conducting multiple short refinement sessions to prevent release delays.With actionable insights and a call to action to use the self-assessment questionnaire from the book, this episode is a goldmine for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 teams looking to elevate their Scrum practices. Tune in to learn practical strategies for continuous improvement and master the art of agile with your team.Don't miss out—subscribe to the Amazing Apps podcast to stay updated on more insightful episodes in the Mastering Professional Scrum series.RESOURCESSimon Reindl on LinkedInStephanie Ockerman on LinkedInMastering Professional Scrum from Amazon (affiliate)Mastering Professional Scrum audiobook on Audible (affiliate)Stephanie Ockerman's site, Agile SocksMastering Professional Scrum on InformIT

In this episode of Amazing Apps, host Neil Benson explores the importance of rethinking our approach to building business applications. Join us as we delve into the benefits of questioning our assumptions and adapting to new information in the dynamic landscape of app development.- Unpacking the concept of "thinking like a scientist" and its impact on creating agile business apps.- Understanding cognitive entrenchment and how it can hinder our progress in app development.- Examining how embracing new tools like Power Automate or Azure Data Factory can outdo outdated practices.- Learning from personal experiences and external experts to reassess long-held beliefs about health and productivity.- Discovering how to stay open-minded to new methods for building Power Platform and Dynamics 365 apps without losing sight of effective agile approaches.Keep experimenting

#154. Neil Benson takes us on a journey of learning through experimentation. Starting with the historical origins of smallpox inoculation, Neil discusses the importance of conducting experiments to drive innovation and problem-solving. Sharing personal experiences from his biochemistry studies to his current work in building applications with Power Platform and Dynamics 365, Neil emphasizes the value of agile software development and the significance of learning through short bursts of experimentation. He provides insights into real-world experiments with AI Builder and form processing models, highlighting the impact of these experiments on improving business processes. Neil also shares his experimentation with AI features in his own content creation and business operations, encouraging listeners to embrace the mindset of a scientist and continue experimenting. So, tune in to explore the power of learning through experiments and discover how it can accelerate your own journey in building amazing apps.Free Workshop: 3 Secrets to Building Business Apps with ScrumJoin this free interactive workshop to discover the three secrets to successfully using Scrum to build agile apps so you can deliver projects faster, under budget, have more fun, and get promoted.https://customery.com/3secretsMentioned in this episode:Subscribe to my new Estimating Business Apps podcast mini-seriesEstimating Business Apps is a five-part podcast that will help you quickly, accurately and confidently estimate complex Power Platform and Dynamics 365 apps in minutes. Listen now: https://estimating-business-apps.captivate.fm/listen

GAME ON! We talk about game development on the Power Platform and if you are a participant at Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge, you don't want to miss this episode. Wink Wink ;) We also talk about Data Activator for Microsoft Fabric, Marc Smith's 30 day mentoring challenge, and Dynamics Hotdish's episode about Rethinking Azure DevOps Practices and Insights with Neil Benson. We finish of by going through which conferences we are going to in the coming months. 365.Training - my digest feed Get started using Data Activator - Microsoft FabricFabric February 2024 | Norway's #1 Microsoft Fabric Conference!Navigate between screens with the Power Apps TabLi... By Egregorichnz365guy - Mentor - Coach - Trainer by Mark SmithAgile Insights with Neil Benson: Rethinking Azure DevOps Practices - Dynamics Hotdish by Ashley Steiner and Ali NelsonSuccessful Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps by Neil Benson Power Apps Tracks Santa by David WyattTop-down 2D game engine proof of concept by mhopusMaking a Game in PowerApps – PowerPush: Dungeon Explorer 3000! by The Chris KentI made a 3D GAME in POWER APPS

#153.  Neil Benson is joined by Keith Atherton, a proper pro developer. Keith shares his journey from developing custom apps using .NET, C# and SQL Server to embracing and mastering the development of enterprise business applications using the Power Platform.What do developers lose and gain using Power Platform compared to developing an app from scratch with .NET and SQL Server.The power of rapidly prototyping applications in Power Apps even compared to wireframing tools, like Basalmiq.How Keith decides when to use a low-code option or write code to meet a requirement.The value of documenting our own solutions and decisions, even if it's just for our own benefit later. Developers are used to unit testing, automated regression testing, AI-assisted programming. Do you miss those capabilities when working with Power Platform, especially Power Fx?  How Keith thinks about keeping his skills up-to-date and mastering so many competencies through a weekly learning routine.Why .NET and C# developers should start with PL-900 Power Platform Fundamentals as their starting point for learning how to transfer their skills to Power Apps development.If Keith had a magic wand, Microsoft would enable him to use C# in the Power Fx editor.Keith AthertonKeith Atherton on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-atherton/Keith's blog: https://www.keithatherton.com/Keith's podcast, On Air in the Cloud: https://onairinthecloud.com/ResourcesKeith's courses on LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/keith-atherton PL-900 Power Platform Fundamentals training on Microsoft Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/power-plat-fundamentals/Real-world examples of Power Platform solution architectures: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/architecture/real-world-examples/overviewSupport the showCONNECT

We are THRILLED to have had the opportunity to talk with Neil Benson, Founder and CEO of Customery. Neil first reached out to us to tell us everything that we did wrong with our Azure DevOps (ADO) best practices, and we knew we had to have him on the podcast. All jokes aside, much like everything we do with technology, there are so many different ways to complete something - people have differing opinions on everything from how to build forms, when to use Power Automate, and how to run their Agile teams. Neil is an Agile expert and spends his time mentoring and coaching individuals and businesses on how to run Agile optimally for their organizations. Basically, he's an expert in the field and we wanted to hear his advice (and share it with you) on how to leverage ADO that may be a little different than what we're currently doing. Visit https://www.dynamicshotdish.com for more information

#151. Amazing Apps host, Neil Benson, dives into a case study from one of his team's own projects: "Member Super", a financial services organisation in Australia. With over a million members, they needed a CRM application that could handle their complex stakeholder relationships and provide exceptional service to their customers.Member Super's existing CRM app was limiting their capabilities and hindering their goal of achieving a single view of their customers. So, they made the decision to take control and build their own CRM application. Superware partnered with them to make it happen, and the results were nothing short of AMAZING!RESOURCESSuperware.ai website: https://superware.aiSuperware on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/superware-aiSupport the showCONNECT

#150. What does it take to have a successful go live event for your Dynamics 365 or Power Platform application. Neil Benson sat down with Andrew Bibby, a seasoned expert in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform business applications. In this episode, Andrew shares his insights on the crucial process of preparing for and executing a successful go live. From addressing technical difficulties to promoting user adoption and measuring success, Andrew sheds light on the often-overlooked aspects of post-delivery project management. He also discusses the importance of training, involving change champions, and effective communication in ensuring a smooth transition. Don't miss this informative episode filled with practical tips for achieving a seamless go-live and maximizing return on investment!RESOURCESAndrew Bibby on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbibby/Proximo3 on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proximo3/Proximo3 website: https://proximo3.com/Nordic Summit: https://nordicsummit.info/South Coast Summit: https://www.southcoastsummit.com/TIMESTAMPS03:26 Phased go-live events for Dynamics 36506:06 Effort in successful go-live leads to happiness08:34 Preparation and rehearsal lead to a successful go-live12:39 Prepare and do steps before go-live15:36 Early user involvement is vital for successful projects21:17 Insufficient thought put into IT project training25:45 Change management ensures successful projects and user adoption30:07 Change management enhances project success and communication33:02 Choosing a go-live day38:20 Metrics, monitoring, and justification are crucial42:30 The importance of getting across your message, and change managementSupport the showCONNECT

GUEST OVERVIEW: Dr Benson is the author of "On the Origins of Diseases", and an Allergies and autoimmune diseases specialist. For well over 30 years, Dr. Benson has improved the health of thousands of patients.

#148. Get ready for another captivating episode of Amazing Apps! In this episode, Neil Benson engages Shawn Tabor, Director of Consulting Services at Hitachi Solutions, in an insightful conversation about the dynamic realm of Microsoft Business Applications and its role in the manufacturing and service industries. Explore Hitachi's product landscape, investment strategies, and the art of identifying patterns to create accelerators for efficient project estimations. Discover Shawn's podcasting journey, collection hobbies, and upcoming conference plans. Timestamps05:40 Improving customer experience for manufacturers07:36 The power of strategic planning09:56 The challenge of implementing Microsoft ecosystem10:59 Microsoft investment strategies14:06 Simplifying field service applications15:07 Streamlining field service20:59 Significant implementations across manufacturing, services, and healthcare21:37 Integration challenges in the field service business23:34 Power Platform innovations24:55 Agile methodology RESOURCESShawn Tabor on LinkedInHitachi Solutions websiteCommunity Summit NA: 15-20 October in Charlotte, NCSupport the showCONNECT

#146. In this episode, we're thrilled to have Martin Hinshelwood from naked Agility join host, Neil Benson. Martin shares his perspectives on improving the success of agile engagements through the role of a consulting product owner, and why you should build your own business applications rather than buy Dynamics 365 if you're looking for competitive advantage. Hit the play button and dive into this insightful conversation between Neil and Martin!Timestamps02:46 The importance of unique capabilities in a competitive market06:09 The power of vertical integration11:58 Outsourcing core business practices16:37 Risks and rewards in business21:02 The incompetence of business31:38 The role of a consulting product owner33:44 The role of a scrum master in the professional services world36:56 Using APIs to drive innovation RESOURCESMartin Hinshelwood on LinkedInMartin Hinshelwood on Twitternaked Agility websitenaked Agility on TwitterSupport the showCONNECT

145. We're back with another incredible episode of Amazing Apps, and this time we have an amazing guest on board. Neil Benson is joined by the Low Code Lead & Platform Evangelist at ANS Group, Chris Huntingford. Chris spills the beans on citizen developers, he talks about the concept of ecosystem enablement, the potential of low code platforms, the importance of enabling everyone to build apps and flows, hackathons, and more. Hit the play button and dive into this insightful conversation between Neil and Chris!TIMESTAMPS00:03:39 The importance of citizen developers00:07:24 The power of fusion teams00:09:09 Building skills with hands-on experience00:13:30 All about hackathons00:16:38 The importance of ecosystem enablements00:18:16 The importance of people in digital transformation00:20:31 Customer shift in app development00:22:09 The future of Dynamics and Power Platform00:26:07 What it's like to work for Microsoft or a partner00:32:13 The impact of timing on conference attendance00:34:00 Tips for effective learning and building solutions with DataverseRESOURCESChris Huntingford on LinkedInChris Huntingford on YouTubeThat Platform Guy on TwitterANS Group on LinkedInSupport the showCONNECT

#144.  Neil Benson is joined by Matthew Venamore, a scrum master with extensive experience coaching Dynamics 365 teams. Matthew shares valuable insights into the challenges faced by new scrum masters when joining existing teams and emphasizes the importance of empowering the team. He advises taking a standoffish stance initially, observing the team and their work before making any changes or adding value. Matthew shares his personal journey, starting as a software delivery manager and eventually becoming a scrum master. He highlights the importance of coaching and guiding a team towards self-management and offers insights into handling various challenges, such as developers working on product backlog items that are not ready. He discusses the benefits and potential drawbacks of having a definition of done and a definition of ready, emphasizing the need for flexibility and open discussions within the team.Tune in to this enlightening episode of Amazing Apps podcast as Matthew Venamore provides valuable insights and practical advice for both new and experienced scrum masters, shedding light on the importance of empowerment, simplicity, and continuous improvement within agile teams.Matthew VenamoreMatthew Venamore on LinkedInResourcesAmazing Apps 45: Live inside my Daily ScrumScrum GuideI've just registered for Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas from 3-5 October. I'd love to see you there. Visit customery.com/mppc for a $150 discount voucher to register.Support the showCONNECT

#143. On this episode of Amazing Apps, we discuss resourcing agile teams using the Scrum framework. Neil Benson talks about who we should have on our teams as product owner, developers and scrum master. Should Microsoft partners offer to provide a consultant for every role on the team? Listen in to find out.Timestamps(02:04) Product owner maximizes value, sets goals.(03:02) Product owner orders backlog, ensures focus.(07:52) From business analyst to product owner.(09:32) Ideal product owners.(14:07) External stakeholders.(16:37) QA pros are devs in Scrum teams.(21:30) Scrum master's role and boundaries in coaching.I've just registered for Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas from 3-5 October. I'd love to see you there. Visit customery.com/mppc for a $150 discount voucher to register.Support the showCONNECT

#142. Neil Benson discusses the challenges of organizing a large Scrum team to maximize efficiency. He suggests rotating developers between teams and organizing teams around specific components or external systems they need to integrate with. Neil also recommends self-organizing teams and coaches teams to create their own code of conduct and establish expected behaviors. He shares his experience of organizing teams by components in the past at RACQ and why it wasn't the best approach. ResourcesScaling Scrum with Nexus on Scrum.orgRichard Hundhausen, co-creator of Nexus, on Amazing Apps #136Timestamps(02:52) Large team split into component-based teams for Scrum framework. (04:49) Organizing teams by component creates interdependencies and hinders productivity; a better approach is having a team with all the necessary skills. (08:27) Allowing developers to form their own teams empowers and trusts them to be accountable for their work, rather than having a manager organize teams. (11:16) Amazing Apps Retrospective: behind the scenes.Support the showCONNECT

#141. On this episode of Amazing Apps, podcast host Neil Benson is joined by Allan de Castro, a senior technical consultant for the Power Platform at Avanade France.They discuss their experience applying Scrum to recent projects, including the role of an architect in the Scrum framework. The episode covers key challenges such as the importance of ensuring clarity in the backlog, prioritization of sprints, and addressing technical requirements while focusing on business and added value. [00:06:23] Allan, an architect and technical lead, discusses the challenge of finding their place in a team using the Scrum framework for the first time, and navigating discussions related to technical requirements and architecture while also focusing on business requirements and added value. [00:10:15] Focus on delivering continuous testing value during sprints, even if it means sacrificing some business value.[00:11:56] Agile and Scrum framework used for new project, integrating systems and iterating for development. Customer familiarity with Agile important.[00:13:12] Capture project requirements early to avoid issues in development.[00:16:36] Business analyst helps product owner with basic questions on application building, including object lifecycle. Dynamics 365 provides out-of-the-box features, such as bulk edit mode, without development needed. It can be demonstrated in demo instead of user story.[00:19:10] To successfully execute a Dynamics 365 project using Scrum framework, it is important to ensure technical requirements are included in the backlog and fully estimated. It is also important to train the customer on Dynamics 365 and focus on prioritization during sprints. Custom development must fit into the security models provided by Dynamics. Workshops may be needed to refine new business requirements.[00:24:06] Team delivers daily or every two days into the UAT environment, with testing by a quality insurance person and a dual check by the project owner or business analyst before marking as done. UAT phases were conducted initially, but now testing is continuous without UAT phases.[00:26:13] The architecture and requirements were complicated due to unclear data sources and ongoing system construction. Agile methodology requires clear definitions before development, and cultural differences affect analysis phases. Workshop and design are necessary for identifying potential risks and managing sales territory was a major concern.[00:31:14] Ensure clear backlog, communicate dynamics to team and stakeholders, define sprint process, architect advisory role, avoid influencing sprints.[00:32:34] Dev team used Azure DevOps for backlog management, linking work items to pull requests and builds for easy tracking and communication with end users. They also suggest creating automatic task generation for consistent task patterns.I've just registered for Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas from 3-5 October. I'd love to see you there. Visit customery.com/mppc for a $150 discount voucher to register.Support the showCONNECT

In this episode, Nick tells you everything you need to know about the three big announcements for Power Pages over the past two weeks. Ulrikke makes a mess of iterative empiricism; the topic of Neil Benson's latest episode on the Amazing Applications podcast. Also, no podcast episode without rants

Life in the Microsoft channel has changed over the years, and while our guest, Microsoft MVP Neil Benson, has never been far from that world of license rules, ISV solutions, and partner programs, his recent experiences with his new venture, Superware, have been instructive, he says.   Working with Microsoft in 2023 is not like working with them  in 2013 or 2006, and Neil explains some of the ways he and other partners are adapting. In addition to getting a new industry-focused software and services business off the ground, Neil continues to develop training programs for the Microsoft community, blog, podcast, and think more broadly about where the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform ecosystem is headed. Show Notes: 1:30 - The launch of a new business 3:30 - Working in Australia's carefully regulated superannuation industry 7:00 - Aligning with Microsoft's industry category approach 8:15 - Applying agile concepts with Superware projects and clients 10:00 - The latest stats on Neil's online courses 14:30 - How do fusion teams align with agile development teams 20:15 - How to estimate the size of the total pool of Dynamics professionals? 22:30 - Developing new skilled workers for the Dynamics and Power Platform ecosystem 26:00 - The challenges of launching a career today 27:30 - Building a channel business in 2023 vs 2006 36:30 - Can Microsoft adequately support its broad landscape of partners? 38:00 - Conference outlook

In this episode, Daryl and Scott talk to fellow MVP Neil Benson who is a host of his own podcast, Amazing Apps, about tools and suggestions for estimating projects. Some of the highlights: Estimating Business Applications Estimating in time sucks Neil's Favorite tool for estimating?  His phone calculator app Neil wants Daryl to run 10km uphill, in the rain, over a bridge with holes... Managing Work Items/Sprints using Azure DevOps (SpecMap, StoriesOnBoard) Jira with precious user interface Estimating projects for RFPs Neil has multiple birthdays Drink driving vs Drunk Driving AmazingApps.Show People that have built amazing apps Answer questions on topics Why Neil still plays with LEGO CRM Lady and stock images Neil's Info and other links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilbenson @customery The LinkedIn post about painting your house that triggered Scott: Do you estimate projects in days? I did, and my estimates sucked. Customery Academy website: https://customery.academy Customery Academy YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/customeryacademy Join Estimating Business Apps free mini-course: https://customery.academy/courses/estimating Amazing Apps podcast: https://amazingapps.show/111 Got questions? Have your own tool you'd like to share? Have a suggestion for a future episode? Contact Daryl and Scott at cast@xrmtoolbox.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and @XrmToolCast for updates on future episodes. Do you want to see us too? Subscribe to our YouTube channel to view the last episodes. Don't forget to rate and leave a review for this show at Podchaser. Your hosts: Daryl LaBar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daryllabar | @ddlabar Scott Durow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdurow | @ScottDurow Editor: Linn Zaw Win: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linnzawwin  | @LinnZawWin Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Episode 112: Markus Erlandsson talks to Neil Benson from Customery about Agile CRM, where Neil shares how he makes estimates, handles tricky situations reduces fears of changes. He also talks about how customers can be good product owners. Bio Neil's on a mission to help Microsoft customers and partners build agile business applications. He's well … Continue reading Agile CRM with Neil Benson The post Agile CRM with Neil Benson first appeared on CRM Rocks.

Community member, Neil Benson met Glen and John at the Brisbane live event earlier this year. Neil joins Glen for a chat about his story and how he manages his money! His story touches on:

#1170 Neil Benson runs a business called Customery: he's on a mission to help people learn the Scrum methodology of project management. He has a podcast and regular course sales, but the numbers have been about the same for the last 12 months. In short, the business has stalled a bit. Today I'm going to coach Neil through all things optimization. We'll talk through strategies for using his podcast to hint at the value his course can offer, creating bonus offers, and injecting scarcity to increase students and revenue. By the end of the show, you'll learn a ton about optimizing sales conversion points. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/ap1170

233 - Super-enthusiastic Animated Bubbles - Neil Benson in Nelson joins Samuel Mann in Sawyers Bay. With a contribution from Tahu Mackenzie. This show was broadcast on OAR 105.4FM Dunedin - oar.org.nz

Join me with Marc Schweigert, a  programme manager on the Power Customer Advisory Team at Microsoft as we talk about Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) approaches suited to novices and citizen developers through to professional developers. A healthy application lifecycle process is critical if you're going to build amazing, agile, Dynamics 365 and Power Apps platform applications. I think it's great that Microsoft is finally providing more prescriptive advice for how to achieve healthy ALM and providing tools to help us get there.Make sure you stick around until the end of this episode to find out how you can get access to the bonus episode with Neil Benson and Marc Schweigert's extended interview.Our discussion covers:How the Microsoft PowerCAT group fits in and helps customers.What is Microsoft's definition of application lifecycle management?The CoE Starter Kit  which helps people get from the beginning clean slate to a mature state with some level of build source control, build deployment and automationThe journey to get to a place to open-source the CoE starter kitWhether ALM applies to practitioners executing a waterfall style project as much as it does an agile style.Training plans for the new ALM patterns and practices.If you'd like to hear that bonus extended interview, please make sure you subscribe to the Amazing Apps show in your podcast player and set it to download new episodes automatically.ResourcesMarc Schweigert on LinkedIndevkeydet (@devkeydet) on TwitterALM Patterns and Practices ALM Toolkit for MakersALM Toolkit for Advanced MakersScottish Summit: From Zero to ALM in DemosPowerCAT Live channel on YouTubeAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/amazingapps)

Join me with CJ Brooks, a Fundraising and Engagement Architect at Mission CRM as we talk about how Mission CRM closed the doors on their consulting practice to focus on building the Mission CRM fundraising and engagement application for nonprofit organizations. Make sure you stick around until the end of this episode to find out how you can get access to the bonus episode with Neil Benson and CJ Brooks extended interview.Our discussion covers:How Mission CRM took a step back and pivoted to create an application.How Mission CRM adapted to Microsoft's not for profit accelerator soon after the release of their not for profit products.Striking the balance between agile software development and well structure dev ops.If you'd like to hear that bonus extended interview, please make sure you subscribe to the Amazing Apps show in your podcast player and set it to download new episodes automatically.ResourcesCJ Brooks on LinkedInMISSION CRM on LinkedInMISSION websiteDemo: Dynamics 365 Fundraising & EngagementSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/amazingapps)

Join me with Bert Wijns, a Global Solution Strategy Architect a Microsoft and co-founder of Power Accelerate as we talk about the tool he created which allows you to take a screenshot of a legacy application or database schema and have a Power App built in a few minutes with the legacy data migrated. Sound crazy? Listen on to hear more about Bert Wijns' Power Accelerate.Make sure you stick around until the end of this episode to find out how you can get access to the bonus episode with Neil Benson and Bert Wijns'  extended interview.Our discussion covers:Being a Microsoft employee at the same time as starting another company.Alternative channels to screenshots which can be used as a starting point for the time-saving Power Accelerate process.Current size limitations of Power Accelerate and how they can be overcome.The roadmap from private preview to GA and beyond for Power Accelerate.If you'd like to hear that bonus extended interview, please make sure you subscribe to the Amazing Apps show in your podcast player and set it to download new episodes automatically.ResourcesBert Wijns on LinkedInPower Accelerate on LinkedInPower Accelerate websitePower Apps Screenshot ModernizationPower Accelerate Intro Amazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/amazingapps)

Today I have the pleasure of sitting down to chat with podcast listener and super-niche course creator Neil Benson. Neil shares about his corporate background, how he became a course creator, his experience with B2B marketing, and why he uses LEGO to explain very complex concepts within his niche. We also discuss how Neil measures... Read More

Today I have the pleasure of sitting down to chat with podcast listener and super-niche course creator Neil Benson. Neil shares about his corporate background, how he became a course creator, his experience with B2B marketing, and why he uses LEGO to explain very complex concepts within his niche. We also discuss how Neil measures... Read More

Daryl LaBar and Jonas Rapp, co-hosts of the XrmToolCast join Neil Benson to answer the questions about how to document complex systems when asked to "devise a roadmap for migrating a Dynamics CRM 2013 and a CRM 2016 environment into a single Dynamics 365 online environment ."A documentation tools masterclass from two experts in the field who discuss what tools to use for on-premise implementations when Snapshot! for Dynamics 365 can’t be used.ResourcesDaryl LaBar on LinkedInJonas Rapp on LinkedInXrmToolCast PodcastSnapshot! for Dynamics 365XrmToolBox Plugin Registration ToolXrmToolBox Web Resource ToolXrmToolBox Attribute Usage InspectorXrmToolBox Metadata Document GeneratorUse Visual Studio Code to search for 'Xrm.'XrmToolBox Power Apps Solution Checker for XrmToolBoxEntity relationship diagram generation tool in Visio 2016 SDKXrmToolBox Entity Relationship Diagram GeneratorUML Diagram Generator for XrmToolBoxVisio Document GeneratorDiagrams.netServer Trigger Explorer from CDS.ToolsAmazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/amazingapps)

Fellow MVP Neil Benson needed some help on a project and decided to use a lifeline and called Daryl and Jonas to ask what tools to use to document a system for a technical assessment.  We decided to record the phone call for all to enjoy. Be sure to check out Neil's "Pimp My LinkedIn Profile" YouTube series! Tools Discussed: SnapShot! For Dynamics 365 - https://www.xrmcoaches.com/snapshot/  Plugin Registration Tool - https://github.com/Innofactor/PluginRegistration  Attribute Usage Inspector - https://github.com/MscrmTools/MscrmTools.AttributeUsageInspector  Metadata Document Generator - https://github.com/MscrmTools/MsCrmTools.MetadataDocumentGenerator  PowerApps Checker - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/use-powerapps-checker    Neil's Info and other links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilbenson/  Twitter: @Customery Pimp My LinkedIn Profile: Watch Here, Sign up Here  Website: https://www.customery.com/  Got questions? Have your own tool you’d like to share? Have a suggestion for a future episode? Contact Daryl and Jonas at cast@xrmtoolbox.com. Your hosts: Daryl LaBar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daryllabar/ | @ddlabar Jonas Rapp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rappen/ | @rappen Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Welcome to a season of Q&A episodes on the Amazing Applications podcast where Neil Benson, Microsoft MVP, will do his best to answer your questions about building amazing applications.Neal Carty, a Business Solutions Consultant at Traction On Demand in Toronto asks:How does the Professional Scrum Product Owner certification compare to the Professional Scrum Master certification, and is it relevant for Dynamics 365?What's the best way to acquire the knowledge required for PSPO certification?How can we accelerate our learning and avoid high-fees for generic, in-person PSPO courses?Can we mix certifications between Scrum.org and Scrum Alliance?Resources mentioned in this episodeScrum.org Professional Scrum Master I training and certificationScrum.org Professional Product Owner I training and certificationScrum Alliance Certified Product Owner training and certificationProfessional Scrum Product Owner by Don McGreal and Ralph Jocham (affiliate)Product Mastery: From Good to Great Product Owner by Geoff Watts (affiliate)Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/amazingapps)

Show Resources: Episodes we referenced: Ep 17 - LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Ads - Should You Use Them? Ep 26 - LinkedIn Ads are so expensive. Why is that? Article on MarketingLand LinkedIn Learning course about LinkedIn Ads by AJ Wilcox: LinkedIn Advertising Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with ideas for what you'd like AJ to cover. Show Transcript: The objective that LinkedIn Ads is optimizing towards is not the objective you are optimizing for as an advertiser. And that means you can take advantage of it, if you know how the objectives work. Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox. Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics. So objectives on LinkedIn came out in early 2019. And we even had Episode Four with Amita Paul from LinkedIn about how LinkedIn is thinking about these objectives. And if you've managed Facebook Ads before, this was probably a very comfortable change. But I certainly did not appreciate the transition to objectives, as it added a lot more complexity to us as advertisers for not much additional value. But now that we've got experience with all of the objectives, we found the tips, tricks, and hacks on how to use them to our advantage, and I'm super excited to share them with you. Highlighting a couple of recent reviews, Neil Benson over on pod chaser says, "I took a Jays LinkedIn ads course on LinkedIn learning, and now I'm diving into his podcast to get deeper into the topics I need to learn to drive wildly successful LinkedIn ads campaigns. It's only been two days since AJ showed me how to create a campaign and I've spent $60 for eight leads so far. By the time I've listened to all the episodes, we'll know how many of those leads became paying students." Neil, thank you so much for leaving such an awesome review. That makes my little ginger heart so proud that you're seeing results already. So keep it up cheering you on. And then Christie McCabe, who is an Aussie from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. She works at an agency called Clevvi. And she says, "The go to podcasts for LinkedIn ad strategy. AJ has always been my go to resource for any questions related to LinkedIn advertising, I was so excited to see he launched a podcast so I can upscale while commuting, walking, etc. His podcast episodes are succinct, informative, and so giving valuable information and examples. AJ is genuine and helpful, sharing years of study and trials with us, which is so appreciated." Christy, you totally made my day. Thank you so much for saying such kind words. And if you found value by listening to the podcast, please do leave a review. And I want to help feature you. Okay, let's hit it. 2:21 So we're diving headlong into objectives here. And before we had objectives, what was it like? Well, we just had two bidding options, there was CPC bidding, cost per click, and there was CPM bidding, cost per thousand impressions. And if you look at anything that LinkedIn published, they would always say the same thing, "if your goal is getting impressions bid CPM, and if your goal is getting clicks, bid CPC", and it probably took me a little bit too long to figure this out. But that's really not good advice. And I ended up writing an article for MarketingLand back in 2015. And I've linked to it in the show notes. But it details the reason why this is actually really bad advice. And it it's because as a performance marketer, my goal is to get the lowest cost per result possible. And so I've done a lot of testing on different bid models, bidding high and low in both CPC and CPM. And I found that whatever bid model is that you're using whatever produces the lowest cost per click, also results in the lowest cost per impression, and vice versa. And the one factor here that all of this depends on which bid model you want to use, it's totally based off of your click through rate or your engagement rate. And so this is the concept that I developed where you've probably heard me say before, if your click through rates for sponsored content are over 1%, that's when you want to bid CPM. And when they're under that you want to bid CPC, but low. And regardless of what your actual goal or objective is, if you want the lowest cost per impression, or lowest cost per click, lowest cost per lead, you could follow this guideline, and that would give it to you. You've probably heard of eCPC or eCPM, and that means your effective cost per click or your effective cost per impression. And the way this works is if you're bidding for impressions, you can still see, in the dashboard, what your effective cost per click would be. So check this out and see no matter what objective and no matter what bid type you're using, go and take a look at the CPC column inside of campaign manager. You can even customize the columns and put CPC next to CPM and see if this holds true. And of course, you're all sophisticated marketers, so you might not be saying the same thing. But I hear a lot of people saying, well, cost per click isn't the end all be all. And it's true cost is important, but it's not the most important thing. But when we're comparing bid models, you have to assume that your conversion rate is going to stay the same and be held constant. And so if you do this, if you're looking to reduce your cost per lead, the way you do that is by reducing your cost per click. So we're always looking for any way to reduce the costs. And of course, still fill your budget. And inevitably, when you tell your LinkedIn rep, that this is what you're doing, you're trying to lower your cost per click, they will certainly tell you that you need to bid more competitively because that will give you a better conversion rate, and lead quality. And so I've done a lot of testing around this. I wanted to find out, if I bid really high did my lead quality increase? And if I bid really low, and I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for these leftover audience members, did my lead quality decrease? And in every case, we actually haven't found a difference in lead quality. And we've run a lot of data through this test. So I don't think that holds water. But of course, I'd love to hear from you if you've found differently. So then LinkedIn rolled out objectives in early 2019. It was actually in late 2018, where it was an open beta, that anyone could switch back to the old interface if they wanted. But when we saw this, the very same issues came up again. And that is, when you look at the objectives, LinkedIn says to pick the objective that you want to optimize for. And that's what they'll go after, they'll try to optimize for the same thing. But we found very quickly that that's not always correct, or even most of the time. So to understand this concept, you'll need to separate the idea in your head, that the objective that you choose in LinkedIn is actually the best objective for you if your goal matches that objective name. I know that's a little complex. So I'll give you an example here. If your objective is lead generation, because your boss said, we need to generate leads, then you'd probably go and try to select lead generation as your objective. And then you find out after selecting the lead generation objective, that all that means is now your ads are going to have a native lead generation form attached to them. And you may have wanted to generate a lead from your landing page form. So it certainly is worth understanding LinkedIn's definition of objectives. And of course, we'll find ways to use this to your advantage as well. The principle here is that the objective that you select in a campaign means that LinkedIn attempts to optimize towards that objective, but the definition of optimize is going to be different, I think, for you as the advertiser, then it means to LinkedIn. For LinkedIn, optimizing means volume, and they're usually not too concerned with cost efficiency. And for my experience, the advertisers goal is usually quite the opposite. Efficiency first, and volume second. The reason why LinkedIn optimizes towards this, I think they figured out very early on that it's worse to have an advertiser say, I put in my credit card, I developed campaigns, and it didn't spend anything, than it was to have someone come and say, I tried out LinkedIn Ads, and they were too expensive. And you might feel like this is more of a cash grab, like if LinkedIn is gonna charge people anyway, you might as well take their entire budget. But in talking to LinkedIn's product management team, I don't feel like that's the case, I don't feel like this is purposely grabby or being greedy or trying to rip anyone off. But I certainly see how this can feel. And I feel like that when a new advertiser goes in to create their first campaign, it's really daunting to look at this list of seven objectives, and immediately have to pick, ahhh, this is what I feel like is more my objective today. And I'd love to simplify this. So in my mind, it's so much easier to take out the things that aren't really all that valuable, leaving you with only the best ones to try. So let's walk through some of the objectives that I recommend avoiding. Objectives To Avoid 8:36 Brand Awareness The first is brand awareness as an objective, and I recommend this zero percent of the time, it's quite literally worthless. The reason why is the only thing that brand awareness as an objective has to optimize towards is people seeing the ad. And seeing the ad is exactly the same thing as an impression. And it doesn't make any sense to me that an ad platform can optimize towards showing impressions to people who happen to see impressions. And it would be okay, even if there's really no algorithm attached here. Except if you look at your bidding and budgeting, you can't actually change your bid. If you choose brand awareness as your objective, the only option you have, which really isn't an option is CPM bidding. So having a platform optimized towards showing impressions, it's not really a thing, I would just ignore this one altogether. If my goal is awareness, I would much rather go for something like the engagement objective, and then have the freedom to change my bid style based off of what I need, as well as whatever is going to give me the best costs. 9:41 Website Conversions The next one, and I know this is going to be controversial, but it's website conversions. I see people using this objective every single day. And it makes a lot of sense. If my goal is to get conversions, of course I would want to optimize towards that. But the challenge here is LinkedIn is attempting to optimize towards those that it feels are most likely to convert. But LinkedIn really has imperfect data here. The only data it really has is back in 2016, when they launched conversion tracking, and of course, there were so many people who installed it incorrectly, we've seen plenty of that, where it's firing a conversion for every landing page view or something like that. It meant that the data really isn't all that great. And the fact that this didn't come out till 2016, when everyone else has had conversion tracking for years and years and years, it means that there's a pretty small data set here. But of course, we have lead generation form ads. And for that, conversion tracking is absolutely perfect. It's flawless. This is a conversion that is occurring on Linkedin.com. LinkedIn sees everything about that conversion about who did it. And so that data is really good. But of course, we've only had that for a little while, too, we've had that for I think two or three years. So even if we assume all of the data is perfect, you look at Facebook, and Facebook probably has the best data scientists in the world working there. Facebook also has tons and tons of interaction and interest data. And I don't really know, but I'm guessing it's probably 1,000 to 10,000 times more data that Facebook has about us than what LinkedIn has about us. And even with all of that crazy amount of data, Facebook still recommends 50 to 100 conversions per week, per ad set for their conversion objective to work properly. So think about that 50 conversions per week per campaign, how many advertisers do you know who are spending large enough and having a high enough conversion rate to even do that on LinkedIn? Do you know? I can count on one hand the number of accounts, I know who can actually hit that. So I don't have a whole lot of faith in the website conversions objective, I just don't think that we have enough data most of the time for it to work. We've done quite a bit of testing. And what we've found is turning on website conversions objective versus just website visits, it was totally a coin flip as to whether things would improve or deprove, if that's a word. So sure, the data is maybe imperfect and the algorithm doesn't really have enough data to work with. But the real nail in the coffin for me on website conversions objective is that all of those advertisers who are using the conversions objective, they are providing extra competition in the auction, and they are willing to bid more for conversions. And so everyone's bidding each other up. So your cost per click and cost per conversion will likely be much higher on website conversions than it would be for just traditional website visits. And I don't think it's a bad thing to test, I would just start with website visits first, and then launch a website conversions version of it side by side and just test to see if you got any value out of it. Like I said, for me, the experience has really been a coin flip as to whether it's it does anything at all. 12:59 Video Views The next objective here is video views. So there is definitely a good reason to use video views objective, but I only recommend it to about 5% of video advertisers. And I know your jaw just dropped. So I'm going to explain this. Running video ads, especially on LinkedIn, it's just higher risk than running static ads. And that's because with a video ad, you really have two calls to action in everything. The first call to action is please watch this video. And then your second call to action is whatever you want them to do afterwards, click to our landing page or fill out this form. And in order to count as a view on LinkedIn, someone just has to watch for two seconds or more as it's playing there in their feed. And for my experience, it's usually about a quarter of everyone who will count as a view. So if you have 1,000 impressions, you'll probably end up with 250 views. And that's not much of a commitment to stick around for two or more seconds. So it doesn't tell me that someone's actually interested. Which means if I'm paying by a cost per view of a video, or even cost per impression, I won't really know how that's performing because my cost per view or cost per impression, it will just look higher than what it was when I was running a static ad against it. And I'm not telling you don't run video because video is a very powerful medium and LinkedIn video ads can be really good, especially because they just released the ability for us to to retarget video viewers. But what many of you may not know is that if you choose your objective of website visits, you can actually run video creative inside of that, which means you can still show your ad to people and it's video, it's going to play automatically. But now you're only going to pay when someone actually clicks on whatever your landing page is. And the same thing works with lead generation objective. You're only going to pay when someone opens up the form. And because opening the form or clicking to my landing page is a much stronger action, it's a much better signal to me to know whether or not I have a good engagement rate or poor. So I'm a big fan of start your video campaigns out on a cost per click basis. And then if you find that your engagement rate is really high, then it makes sense to launch a video views campaign, and then bid by either cost per view, or cost per impression, whichever is less expensive. And that'll have you saving some money. And like we talked about before, with whatever objective that minimizes your cost per impression will also minimize your cost per click, the same rule applies with a cost per view as well. So you just want to see your effective cost per view, effective cost per impression, and effective cost per click as low as possible. And you use whatever objective or whatever bidding model gets you there. 15:56 Job Applicants And the last objective I would tell you to avoid is job applicants. Now, if you're just using LinkedIn for recruiting, it's totally possible that this could be a really good objective for you. But quite honestly, I haven't used it very much. And I can't see how this would actually be more beneficial than just using any of the other objectives, and targeting just those with the trait of job seekers. And of course, that way, you'd actually have more freedom, you could choose whichever ad format you wanted, you could choose whichever bid model you wanted. So I just don't see much of an advantage to having this as an objective. But please let me know if you've experienced otherwise. Okay, we're gonna take a quick sponsor break, and then we'll dive back into which objectives you do want to use. 16:40 The LinkedIn Ads Show is proudly brought to you by B2Linked.com, the LinkedIn Ads experts. If the performance of your LinkedIn Ads is important to you B2Linked is the agency you'll want to work with. We've spent over $130 million on LinkedIn ads, and getting you the lowest costs and the highest quality leads is our focus. And we're the only media buying agency to become official LinkedIn partners, so you know we're doing something right. Fill out the contact form on any page of B2Linked.com to chat about your campaigns, or reach out to us on LinkedIn or Twitter or Morse code. No matter how you get in touch, we'll make sure you look like the hero. 17:23 Objectives You'll Want To Use and How To Use ThemAlright, let's jump back into the objectives that you'll want to use and how to use them. Website Visits So when I'm considering which objective I want to run for a campaign, the first thing I'm going to do is decide whether my traffic is going to my website, or I'm keeping them on LinkedIn. And if you're trying to decide between the pros and cons there, check out Episode 17 on lead generation form ads, and that'll go way deep into it and you'll know your answer there. And if you want your traffic to go to your website or a landing page, you can't go wrong with website visits. I love it because it's the lowest risk type of ad format and objective. The reason for that is you're going to pay only when someone clicks to your website. So you're not going to pay when someone clicks like or when they go to follow your company, or when they just click to go see your company, or how about when they comment below. All of those actions would otherwise be payable, but because you selected website visits as your objective, you're only going to pay for those clicks to your landing page. It makes it ultra low risk. And it's a great place to start. And if you are sending traffic to your landing page or your website, you can totally own it. You can track all of your tracking with really complex or beautiful UTM parameters. You can retarget that traffic with your other channels like Facebook and Google. And inevitably, you'll end up with higher lead quality, because that person has been to your website, and they've received a stronger branding impression than they would have by not visiting your website. And you also have a lot of freedom here and how you bid, you can bid cost per click cost per thousand impressions and auto bidding. You'll even now see target cost per click, which we've talked about before, not my favorite bidding model. But there's a lot of freedom here and how you bid. But if you do want to just keep your traffic on LinkedIn and take advantage of the higher conversion rates that you get by not transitioning someone from one website to another. You can do that with LinkedIn's lead generation form ads, which can be attached to any sponsored content. That's your newsfeed ads, or any sort of sponsored messaging ads, so sponsored messages or conversation ads. 19:34 Lead Generation You'll remember from Episode 17, how we talked about lead gen forms produced the cheapest leads possible, generally conversion rates that are 10 to 50% higher than if you sent to a landing page. But because LinkedIn made it so easy, you're probably going to see a diminished quality of lead. As of recently we can start to retarget anyone who interacts with that form, so whether someone opened it or whether they filled it out, both of those actions we can target or exclude from our campaigns now, which is amazing. They've got the same flexibility in bidding, we can bid by cost per click cost per thousand impressions, or an auto bid. 20:13 EngagementAnd then you have engagement as an objective. Now, I love engagement, simply because it allows me to hack the algorithm a little bit. The deal with engagement is you actually pay for any interaction on the ad, you're going to pay whether someone clicks to your landing page, or whether they click like, comment, share, a click to your company page, or any other interaction. And so if you're bidding cost per click, that sure could add up to a bunch of people who aren't taking the actions you want them to take. But here's why I like it so much. The bid floors on engagement are 35% lower than they are when you choose website visits or lead generation objective. So basically, that means that if you use engagement as an objective, it's possible to get a 35% reduction in your costs. And if you check out Episode 26, all about what makes LinkedIn Ads so expensive, you'll learn more about this. So here's how I decide whether or not I want to use the engagement objective. I'm going to launch a website visits campaign or a lead generation campaign. And if I look at those sponsored content, and I see that less than 35% of my clicks are coming from social actions, then I know it's going to be cheaper to use the engagement objective and be able to bid 35% lower and go ahead and pay for those extra interactions. We've done this where the ads that we launch, they just don't tend to get interactions, they don't tend to get likes, comments, shares or company follows. And this is great, we run those as engagement ads and of course, 100% of the clicks or near it are going to the landing page, and we're able to pay 35% less. It's pretty cool. And of course, if you know this, if you know how the objectives are charged, and what they optimized towards, you can have some cool hacks, you can do some fun things. Some examples of this could be things like a quiz that where you're specifically asking for engagement, but you set the objective as website visits. So all those actions will be free and you'll only pay for a few people clicking. And of course, you can send that traffic to somewhere where it might be valuable anyway, like a demo page or something. And this can play double duty here as well. Because I'm sure as many of you know, anytime that someone takes a social action on LinkedIn, liking, comment, or resharing, it then helps that post go viral. It becomes eligible to be seen by that person's followers and connections. So if you can do this in an ad and get people to want to engage socially, then you'll get a ton more viral views and clicks. A similar kind of hack you could do is you could run a video ad on cost per click with website visits as your objective. And then make the call to action a social engagement. Like if you agree or comment with why you disagree, something like that. And again, that would also help it really go viral. And please reach out. Let me know any cool and interesting ways that you've found to hack LinkedIn's objectives to get better pricing. Okay, I've got the episode resources coming up for you. So stick around. 23:30 Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away. As promised, check down below in the show notes for the article that I wrote on MarketingLand back in 2016 about bid type objectives. It's certainly older, but it'll help you understand the principle of whatever bidding gets you the lowest impression cost will also get you the lowest cost per click. You'll see a link to Episode 17 on lead gen forms, which will help you understand your objectives, as well as Episode 26 about why LinkedIn ads are so expensive. That'll help you understand the engagement objective and when and how it's less expensive. Check out the course on LinkedIn learning or LinkedIn Ads. I'm the author of it. And it's an incredibly inexpensive and great way to train yourself or your staff, whoever is looking to get started at LinkedIn Ads. On whatever player you're listening, look down and hit the subscribe button and as soon as you found value in anything that I've shared, make sure to rate. And please leave a review. I would love to shout you out. I give shoutouts to anyone who leaves a review. With any questions or topic suggestions, reach out to us at Podcast@B2Linked.com. And with that being said, we'll see you back here next week. Cheering you on in your LinkedIn Ads initiatives.

Microsoft MVP, solution architect, and Scrum expert Neil Benson recently concluded two years of work on a membership and sales platform upgrade for RACQ (Royal Automobile Club of Queensland) that involved Dynamics 365 Customer Service, integration with multiple other SaaS vendor solutions, and, of course, lots of legacy data to contend with from the decades old systems being replaced. This was a big project by any standard. Microsoft celebrated its early successes last year, but work has continued, and Neil gives us an inside view of what it has been like managing five delivery streams amid a host of other changes, from user adoption to the IT department's Azure transition to going live during the pandemic.   Show Notes 0:45 - About Neil and his business, Customery 2:50 - About RACQ and their modernization project 5:20 - The scale of this project and the challenges of working at that scale 7:35 - Why RACQ had everything to lose in terms of customer satisfaction and retention from undertaking their modernization program 8:20 - Attitude toward cloud adoption from their legacy stance 10:50 - How five workstreams moved ahead together, how they divided up responsibilities and stages 12:05 - The core software products that go into RACQ's cloud transformation 13:35 - Observations on using Adobe Campaign with Dynamics 365 and other solutions 15:20 - Deploying Apttus and the future of their relationship with (or without) Microsoft 17:50 - The fight for ISV cloud hosting between the hypercloud vendors 19:50 - Using Scrum on a project of this scale 23:50 - Neil's experience training others on Scrum 27:50 - Innovative solutions of the RACQ solution 31:20 - How does an organization focused on driving adapt to Covid and other changing trends around car usage? 34:20 - How such a big project transitioned to work from home during the pandemic 34:35 - RACQ's efforts in trialing other tech like RPA 38:20 - Is RPA a viable long-term product for CIOs? 41:50 - On the history of Customery's LEGO usage 43:15 - Neil's podcast activities Where to find Neil: Customery Academy - https://customery.academy Amazing Apps - https://amazingapps.show Customery Videos - https://youtube.com/customery

This is a special episode of CRM Audio with MVP's Gus Gonzalez, Neil Benson, and Joel Lindstrom. In this episode we dig into what the role of solution architect means and how it has changed in Power Platform projects with the shift to agile deployment methodologies. This episode is being simultaneously released on their podcasts, the CRM MVP Podcast and Scrum Dynamics, and I encourage you to subscribe to both. See full show notes at https://customery.com/50.

Depending on where you work as a Solution Architect you might be expected to be involved with a project from begining to end, or maybe just for bits and pieces during the project execution. Neil Benson, a Microsoft MVP and Agile Implementation expert invited me and Joel Lindstrom to discuss the role of a Solution Architect within the projects we normally implement. From small to large enterprise implementations, roles and responsibilities vary so we wanted to share what we've seen over the years. Is your company leveraging you as a Solution Architect the right way? It's time to find out! Hosts: Neil Benson: https://twitter.com/customery Gus Gonzalez: https://twitter.com/GusGonzalez2 Joel Lindstrom: https://twitter.com/JoelLindstrom

Full show notes available https://www.nz365guy.com/115

In this episode of The Online Course Masters Show, we speak with Neil Benson who has made over $20,000 in the past year and a half with just one course! Neil will share with you his journey into becoming an online course creator and how he is using platforms like LinkedIn to build an audience. This is the Online Course Masters show, where we you learn how to create, launch and grow your own online course business. Visit http://onlinecoursemasters.com for show notes and more online teaching resources. You can join the Academy - the one and only place you need to become an online course masters yourself. Or, start with our free 5-day course creation challenge. Let's teach the world together!

Next week on CRM Audio: Daryl LaBar and Jonas Rapp tell you how to get started developing for the XrmToolBox Stephan Smith talks about the instant developer fallacy Neil Benson interviews Mark Christie on Scrum Dynamics (what's haggis?) CRM Audio episode 105 Thanks for listening!

In this episode (sponsored by Maplytics by Inogic), hosts Britta Rekstad and Matthew C. Anderson take a look down memory lane of working with Dynamics and compare what they’d do differently (or the same) for their first project today. Discussed on the show Taking parental leave How much to take on in a project Neil Benson’s […] The post Things The Second Time Around in Dynamics 365 – Ep 25 appeared first on Implement This.

There is one week every year where the largest concentration of CRM MVPs is recorded, and that is the Microsoft MVP Summit. During the MVP Summit 2018, I asked 10 CRM MVPs to answer the 22 tough questions you see below and I recorded their answers for all to enjoy, discuss, and learn from. Questions: Should Microsoft get rid off Dynamics 365 On-Premise? Why or Why not? How do you think the new Dynamics 365 for Marketing App affects stablished Marketing Automation Solutions such as ClickDimensions, Salesfusion, Act-On, and others? Salesforce and Google continue to collaborate and recently announced tighter integrations between the solutions offered by both organizations, how would a Salesforce acquisition by Google disrupt Dynamics 365’s momentum? One of the things Marc Benioff - the CEO of Salesforce – mentioned on their last big conference was that “Microsoft can’t seem to keep their Dynamics 365 leadership in place”, are those comments accurate? And if so, why do you think that’s happening? Salesforce continues to be a leader in the CRM space with around 25% of the market share globally while Microsoft holds a smaller share, what can Microsoft do to catch up to Salesforce? How important is to master tools such as Microsoft Flow and Power Apps for a Dynamics 365 Solution Architect today? Speaking from the point of view of thousands of partners who are based in the US, why should I care about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) approved by the European Union Parliament on April of 2016? As the Dynamics 365 world grows, many developers from other products or platforms are making a jump into Dynamics 365 and other related technologies, what would you recommend to these developers to focus on learning so they can make a big impact in the near future? AppSource continues to grow and new items are added often, how do you keep up with what is being released and do you have any go-to apps? If you were the Dynamics 365 Product Owner for a day, what are some of the changes or improvements you would like to see added to Dynamics 365? If you could go back and re-do something inside Dynamics 365, what would it be and why? What kind of solution or company would you like to see Microsoft acquire and incorporate into their Dynamics 365 roster next? In your opinion, what is the most underrated feature of Dynamics 365? Now that Microsoft eliminated the branding of XRM, how has this impacted your approach to implementations and conversations with the community? There are hundreds of suggestions on the Microsoft Connect or Idea portal for Dynamics 365 enhancements, some of the suggestions date back a few years, if you had to pick one of those ideas to be incorporated into the next version of Dynamics 365, which one would it be? What is your favorite thing about working with Dynamics 365? What is your favorite part of the MVP Summit and why? What is your favorite thing about being a Microsoft MVP? If you could give one advice to aspiring CRM MVPs, what would it be? We are very fortunate to live in the US and have the ability to travel to and speak at conferences and other events, but what would you say to someone who might not be able to do what we do and who’s wondering if they can add value to the Dynamics 365 community? Which non-MVP community leader do you want to see here at the Microsoft MVP Summit next year and why? Lastly and just for fun, if there was a “CRM MVP for Life Award” and only one CRM MVP could be selected, who should the award go to and why? I would like to thank Ulrik Carlsson and Seth Bacon for contributing questions to this list. And of course, here are the CRM MVPs who stood outside a building for an hour in freezing weather to answer these questions: Colin Vermander (https://twitter.com/koolin_) Sheila Shapari (https://twitter.com/SheilaShahpari) Daryl LaBar (https://twitter.com/ddlabar) Neil Benson (https://twitter.com/customery) Gustaf Westerlund (https://twitter.com/crmgustaf) Britta Rekstad (https://twitter.com/MacgyverCRM) Leon Tribe (https://twitter.com/leontribe) Rick McCutcheon (https://twitter.com/rick_mccutcheon) Shawn Tabor (https://twitter.com/CRMhobbit) Joel Lindstrom (https://twitter.com/JoelLindstrom) Follow us/Subscribe:  Twitter: https://twitter.com/CRMMVPPodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAhjoi4W_K7sLNpXr9Kqz8w

There are many things you can do to increase your chances of success on a Dynamics 365 Implementation, there are also many things you can do to increase the chances of failure. In this episode, I'm joined by CRM MVP Neil Benson to discuss the Top 10 things organizations do that increases the risk of Dynamics 365 Implementation failure. We also walk through a few real personal stories of projects that either failed after go-live, or didn't even make it to full release. We hope you learn from our experience rather than "learning the hard way". Here are the 10 things that will increase the chances of FAILURE of a Dynamics 365 implementation: Lack of buy-in from stakeholders and/or Lack of Executive Sponsor Lack of Systemic, Predictable Project Execution or Methodology "IT Focus" rather than "Business Focus" Lack of Training Starting the implementation of "Change Management" too late "Dirty Data" Lack of integration Not having "quick wins" Misuse of Microsoft Partners Lack of Customer Involvement Exclusive Discount to Neil's "Introduction to Scrum for Dynamics 365" course for listeners of this episode: https://scrum365.customery.com/p/introduction-to-scrum-for-dynamics-365/?product_id=502971&coupon_code=CRMMVP21 Follow us on Twitter! Neil: https://twitter.com/customery CRM MVP Podcast: https://twitter.com/CRMMVPPodcast Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAhjoi4W_K7sLNpXr9Kqz8w

Dynamics 365 Implementation Methodologies Full Show Notes: https://www.nz365guy.com/9

You are clearing your clutter and toss the broken and useless items.  Every wonder where some of your trash goes?  Join me as I interview Joel Spivak and Neil Benson members of the Dumpster Divers of Philadelphia and discover how our trash inspires artists and their creations. The Dumpster Divers of Philadelphia are a group of over 40 found object artists, their artwork as diverse as the group and materials used. They were officially recognized with a 2012 City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Tribute for “helping to raise the consciousness of art lovers and heightened awareness of taking a creative approach to support a more sustainable city, country and world. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/janetmtaylor/message