Development - Reality Check

As a Power Platform Developer committed to continually improving processes in the business, where do you start?? ??Here’s some “low hanging fruit” of processes that your neighbor would probably appreciate your help to modernize.

• Files emailed back and forth for approvals or updates.
• Managing a business-critical projects or processes with Excel, Access, or SharePoint.
• Creating reports from Excel files that require adding or revising data.
• Creating reports that combine data from multiple sources.
• Creating multiple versions of the same report for different audiences.

Now, brace yourself for a Reality Check.

First glances at a process will likely only show the “happy path” perspective.? Not that these manual processes make people happy, but rather our memory of them starts with the simplest version where everything goes as expected. ?In truth, the details usually prove far more complicated than expected.

(Image from Image Creator- with custom “spaghetti”)

Lean Handles

Lean Thinking people often create Spaghetti Diagrams to uncover the crazy reality of the current situation before they start process improvement projects.? In a manufacturing scenario this may show how parts move around the shop floor.? In an administrative process this may represent how people interact with each other and the multi-faceted ways they send, copy/paste, transform, VLOOKUP(), or manually retype data for a project or report.

As a developer, you’re now at a critical fork in the road.? What do you do with everything you’re discovering about this new project/process you’re trying to improve?

Do you dive in headfirst because a “digital process has got to be more efficient than the current process”?

A quick warning.? Not every process is “ready for prime time”.? If your discovery process continues to turn up surprises and the business team is using you to find out what the process actually is, then you’re probably setting yourself up a long, painful process of rework.? It will probably help everyone if you encourage THEM to discover ALL the variations of what’s actually happing before you start work.? A good business analyst who asks good questions can help expedite this process.

Do you automate the process given to you by the business analyst?

Again, even when you know WHAT the current process includes, you should then investigate WHY each step exists.? Does it add value?? Does anyone use the input/output of a given step? ?Even if the business already asked some of these questions before, it’s good for you ask again ??.?

Building the MVP

Now that you know the WHAT and WHY behind each step, you’re ready to tackle HOW.? ?An MVP (minimum viable product) is a good place to start.? Design and build the simple version of your process, and then watch your customer begin to interact with it.? A modern digital process will be VERY different than what they’re used to and will raise all kinds of new questions about how to interact with this process.? Also watch how they interact with your MVP.? With empathetic curiosity pay attention to what’s intuitive and clumsy for them and build that into the next version.

Next Sprint

With a very loose definition of scrums and sprints, the foundational mindset is to build in small increments and get customer feedback and build the next version.? The quicker you can get feedback, the quicker you can iterate your design.? Also, as your customer tinkers with the design, you’ll also be amazed at all the new ideas that come up in the new process that nobody could have even imagined at the beginning of the process.?