With any IT Project deliverable, you will have invested in an evolving platform that can keep your business functions relevant and your users engaged over its lifetime. What are some ideas behind ensuring you remain on the upgrade path, able to use new features added in the future, and keeping your application aligned to your business? It’s all about aligning your IT Projects within an overall applications and business strategy. Mike Gilbert is a solution architect at Intergen, having been in the IT industry for over twenty years. He has presented at the New Zealand Sharepoint conference and enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for IT with like-minded people. Mike's interest lies in making sure organisations get the maximum return out of their investment in technology. In this session, he combines his passion for strategic vision with his knowledge of technologies - using Dynamics CRM in specific examples but relevant to any IT platform or application. Get some ideas that you can take back to your workplace for discussions around your project implementations to ensure the right conversations take place and you get the most value for your money possible. Learn what constitutes good decisions for the future of your solution suite.

1. Mike Gilbert
June 2014
Dynamics CRM User Group
(For all IT Projects, with one or two specific examples relevant to Dynamics CRM)
IT projects
within a strategy

2. About me
Mike Gilbert
Solutions Architect

3. | 3
What’s a Solution Architect?
 A generalist
 Looks at your overall solution both in time, and in space
 “I shaped” specialists versus “T shaped” Architects

4. | 4
What does a Solution Architect Do?
Solution
Architecture
Technical
RoadmapsTechnical
Consulting
Technical
Presales
Solution
Design Project
Governance
Performance
Testing
Integration
Design
Technical
Design
NFRs
ISSP
Enterprise
Architect
Solution
Specialist
Practice
Architect
Team Lead Tester
Technical
Architect

5. How does Architecture
relate to your project?

6. | 6
Before you begin
Is the platform actually right for you?
CRM
CMS?
SharePoint?
Or…?
ERP?
Bespoke?
BI?

7. | 7
Fit with your App Portfolio?
 What do you have, now, that you could deliver the solution on?
 What else would the proposed platform be useful for in your
business?
 Where does your tin live? Where will it?
 What other LOB Applications do you run and how will they work
together with the proposed platform?

8. | 8
After ‘go live’
Don’t let Finance and the PMO trick you!
 Basic maintenance
 Factor regular, incremental improvements into your plan
 Keep your solution patched! CRM – patch to the N-1th rollup as a general rule
 Continuous Improvement
 Keep a prioritised backlog of enhancements and bug fixes
 Train up your BAs and/or Power Users as Solution experts (CRM Consultants)
 Over-buy support hours from your vendor (for incremental improvements)
 Start planning for replacing the solution – from day of Go-live

9. | 9
Application Portfolio Management
Plan for maintenance and replacement
CRM
ERP
WebCMS
ECMS
…
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Refresh Project Replacement Project

10. What about cloud?
Yes, this is the obligatory ‘what about cloud’ bit

11. | 11
Cloud is old news
You should be on cloud by now, or planning how you’ll get there
 GCIO has a risk based approach for govt now
(google ‘GCIO NZ requirements for cloud computing’)
 AWS is in Sydney and Azure is coming
 Revera, Datacom etc in NZ
 Think about
 Contract periods
 Exit Strategy
 Authentication and Authorisation (eg SAML, Azure AD, AD FS)
 Integration (eg Scribe, Azure Service Bus)

12. | 12
Reasons to NOT go to CRM Online
 Immediate need for heavy analytics / BI
… that’s it.
 Unqualified fear of data sovereignty
 Unqualified fear of availability or service continuity
 Unqualified fear of loss of controls (Can’t touch and feel my servers)
… what specific risk(s) are you actually mitigating?
Fears about CRM Online
CRM On-premise vs CRM Online

13. To wrap up
Is the platform really rightfor you? Technology/business fit.
What’s your plan? What comes after the project.
Don’t let your softwarewither. App Portfolio Management.
Don’t buy tin anymore!

14. Thank you