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Author: Ashley Steiner

Administration

Ideal Characteristics of Outstanding CRM Administrators

Client Relationship Management (CRM) solutions are essential in the modern corporate environment for preserving solid customer interactions, increasing sales procedures, and fostering company expansion. The backbone of this ecosystem is a CRM administrator, who is in charge of making sure the system functions flawlessly and keeps up with the changing requirements of the business. But what distinguishes a superior CRM administrator? Beyond technical proficiency, there are a number of crucial characteristics that distinguish a great individual in this position.

Product expertise is unquestionably important for a CRM administrator, but the most important traits go beyond system familiarity. The following characteristics are the most important to search for in a superb CRM administrator:

Empathy and Communication Skills: An effective CRM administrator needs to empathize with end users and a thorough understanding of their needs and challenges. This ability makes it easier to communicate clearly and ensures that the CRM system satisfies the needs of daily users. Additionally, the administrator must be skilled in interacting with both end users and executive leadership, bridging the gap between technical details and business objectives.

Adaptability and Continuous Learning: The CRM landscape is continuously changing, with new updates and features constantly emerging all the time. A great administrator embraces change and actively looks for chances to grow professionally. Their willingness to stay updated ensures the CRM system continues to align with the company’s changing needs and industry trends.

Multitasking and Variety Management: A CRM administrator’s job is anything but routine. A effective administrator thrives in a fast-paced environment where tasks can range from resolving technical issues to collaborating with stakeholders on strategic initiatives. It’s crucial to have the capacity to balance a variety of obligations and adjust to changing priorities.

Independent Decision-Making: A CRM administrator often operates with a high degree of autonomy. They need to make informed decisions on what tasks to prioritize, when to push back, and how to manage their workload effectively. This independence requires a strong sense of responsibility and a strategic mindset.

Strategic Thinking and Problem-Solving: Beyond day-to-day operations, a great CRM administrator possesses the ability to create and execute a strategic vision. They can assess business challenges and devise innovative solutions using the CRM system to drive efficiency, improve processes, and enhance customer experiences.

Effective “No” with Solution-Oriented Approach: The skill of saying “no” is essential, but it’s not about denying requests outright. A skilled administrator can navigate these situations by offering alternative solutions or reshaping expectations. This diplomatic “no” maintains positive relationships while ensuring the CRM’s integrity and effectiveness.

Technical skill in CRM management is merely the tip of the iceberg. Empathy, adaptability, multitasking, independence, strategic thinking, and effective communication are just a few of the other important traits that the best CRM administrators exhibit. By ensuring that the CRM system is in alignment with corporate objectives and strengthens customer relationships, these attributes enable them to administer the system as well as contribute to the overall success of the organization. These characteristics will continue to be crucial for administrators to flourish in their professions and foster organizational growth as the CRM landscape changes.

Project Management

Effective Azure DevOps: Best Practices and Adoption Strategies

For the final stop in our Azure DevOps (ADO) blog series, discover the key best practices and challenges in adopting Azure DevOps. From encouraging transparent collaboration to leveraging ADO’s capabilities for effective reporting, this article delves into the strategies that foster successful user adoption. Learn how aligning team members, clear task documentation, and integration with issue reporting tools optimize project management, making ADO a powerful tool for streamlined workflows. Read on to uncover the essential practices that drive success in the Azure DevOps environment. 

The process of task writing is a critical factor for successful project execution in Azure DevOps. The approach to task creation varies among teams, with some relying on project members to write their own tasks while others involve business analysts or product owners. However, the effectiveness of this practice heavily depends on product knowledge and the level of detail provided in requirements and user stories. Unclear or vague descriptions can lead to misaligned tasks, hindering progress and causing delays. To ensure accurate and comprehensive task documentation, a collaborative effort between team members, including project managers, consultants, and technical personnel, is essential. Understanding the team’s capabilities and fostering effective communication enhances the success of this practice within the ADO environment. 

Another significant challenge to utilizing Azure DevOps tasks effectively lies in ensuring consistent and accurate updates. To overcome this hurdle, it is vital to establish clear expectations and discussions from the project’s outset. Encouraging individuals to diligently update their tasks at each stage fosters a transparent workflow. However, teams often face difficulties in gathering precise effort estimations for sprints due to incomplete task updates. To drive successful adoption, aligning team members with shared understanding of requirements, tasks, and user stories is indispensable. Holding team members accountable for adhering to these practices enhances collaboration and optimizes project progress. 

Effective burndown reporting is critical for optimal project management in Azure DevOps best practices. Incomplete task updates hinder a consultant’s team from accurately understanding the burndown report, impacting their ability to gauge project progress and allocate points appropriately. Transparent reporting extends beyond individual benefits; it directly impacts the company’s financial success and decision-making. Leadership plays a vital role in sharing and interpreting these reports with the team, fostering a deeper understanding and commitment to the process. A cohesive team dynamic, coupled with genuine care for fellow members, becomes essential in ensuring task dependencies and project success within the ADO environment. 

Training plays a vital role in ensuring effective utilization of the Azure DevOps environment. Introducing team members to ADO’s functionalities and navigation is crucial which sets clear expectations for their engagement. The training process should focus on not only familiarizing users with the tool but also emphasizing the “what’s in it for me” aspect to garner their interest and motivation. In a consulting environment, collaborating with clients to integrate ADO into their workflow involves demonstrating its benefits and tailoring its usage to their specific project needs. Providing guidance on acceptance criteria, bug reporting, and utilizing tags and discussions enhances team communication and fosters a seamless transition to ADO, even for those accustomed to email-heavy communication. 

Azure DevOps’s discussion feature proves highly valuable for streamlining collaboration and decision-making. Users can engage in sidebar conversations on work items, resolving issues efficiently and involving relevant team members when needed. The seamless integration of ADO and Teams further enhances communication, enabling specific work items to be brought into team channels for targeted discussions. Additionally, enforcing the practice of logging hours against tasks serves multiple purposes. It provides accurate estimates for project planning and billing, helps identify potential underestimations or overestimations, and ensures transparency in tracking actual work completed. This practice fosters accountability and helps maintain a realistic project timeline, fostering efficient use of resources and preventing surprises during the project’s lifecycle. 

Encouraging team members to consistently update “hours” information in Azure DevOps remains a primary challenge in driving user adoption. People often track time through other mechanisms, making it difficult to convince them to invest extra effort in ADO. The “what’s in it for me” approach, demonstrates the benefits of accurate updates through reports which can be effective in driving adherence to procedures. An essential best practice is utilizing ADO’s import feature to streamline processes by importing templated requirements, epics, or features. This automation opportunity can enhance consistency across projects and reduce manual effort. Additionally, leveraging queries proves valuable in identifying missed tasks, monitoring progress, and ensuring timely completion of work items. By utilizing queries effectively, individuals can keep track of their progress and assess project status more efficiently. 

To ensure successful adoption of Azure DevOps, continuous alignment and reevaluation are crucial. Tailor the approach to fit the team’s needs, understanding that what worked for one company may not suit another. Revisiting practices and procedures allows for adjustments as the team evolves and gains experience with ADO. Integrating ADO with issue reporting tools can be a challenge, especially when using separate systems for support ticketing and project management. Establishing a clear intake process to handle requests and issues, distinguishing between bugs, support tickets, and new features, aids in prioritization and efficient collaboration between teams. Overall, successful ADO adoption requires ongoing collaboration, openness to change, and well-defined intake processes for handling requests and issues. 

In conclusion, this blog post on Azure DevOps explores essential best practices, strategies for user adoption, and common challenges during implementation. Transparent collaboration, accurate task updates, and aligned team members are vital for success. Leveraging ADO’s capabilities, effective reporting, and thorough task documentation are essential for project execution. Integrating ADO with issue reporting tools and establishing clear intake processes optimize project management and enhance collaboration. Continuous alignment and reevaluation ensure seamless adoption, making ADO a powerful tool for streamlined project workflows. 

Check out our podcasts on the same topic:

This wraps up our blog series on Azure DevOps: how to effectively use a project management tool in a Dynamics 365 or Power Platform deployment. 

Project Management

Unveiling the Power of Azure DevOps Change Requests

Azure DevOps (ADO) provides a variety of work items to facilitate project management and collaboration. While the majority of users are aware of user stories, bugs, and tasks, there is one work item that sometimes goes overlooked but is essential for controlling scope changes and making sure that development teams communicate clearly: Change Requests. We will discuss the idea of Change Requests in ADO and how to use them to address changing project requirements in this blog post. 

Change requests are crucial in projects with broad scopes and changing requirements. Even after user stories are finished, stakeholders can suggest changes and enhancements to the current solution using these requests. Change requests offer a disciplined technique to manage scope creep while maintaining the project deadline since they acknowledge that changes will always occur during the development process. 

Change Requests are used as a specific work item to record the desired changes. It is essential to include particular information when submitting a change request, such as the change being requested, how it will affect the current build, how long it will take to implement, and any potential impacts on the timeline or budget. Change Requests offer the development team and stakeholders transparency and clarity by supplying this thorough information. 

Change Requests frequently need the consent of business owners or other important stakeholders. The project team can get official confirmation from the business that the requested change is legitimate and in line with their expectations by incorporating an approval step within the change request. This helps avoid misunderstandings and guarantees that everyone is aware of the changes being made. 

Change Requests are a useful tool for projects of all sizes and levels of complexity. Change Requests provide a systematic method to manage alterations successfully on larger projects when money and timing considerations are crucial. Change Requests are a useful tool for recording and tracking modifications made to the original requirements, allowing for improved collaboration and preventing contradicting instructions even in smaller projects or teams with specialized IT personnel. 

Change Requests frequently go overlooked in Azure DevOps. They are essential in managing changing project requirements, dealing with scope shifts, and maintaining clear stakeholder communication. Teams may track and manage changes while keeping the project on schedule and within budget by utilizing change requests. Adopting this frequently ignored work item can improve communication, ease tension on development teams, and offer a transparent audit record of modifications made over the course of a project. As a result, the next time a project’s requirements change, think about using ADO Change Requests to efficiently manage and document those changes. 

Check out our podcasts on the same topic:

Now that we’ve covered the basics of Azure DevOps work items, we will talking about how to use ADO to optimize Agile project management. This is where the tool meets theory. Make sure you don’t miss it! 

Project Management

Efficient Dependency Tracking with Azure DevOps

Managing dependencies in the fast-paced world of Dynamics 365 implementations is essential for a project’s successful completion. Dependencies are the links between various work items or tasks that rely on each other for completion. In this blog post, we’ll look at how Azure DevOps (ADO) can be used to efficiently track dependencies and identify them, giving teams working on complicated projects visibility and coordination. 

Determining the sequence in which actions must be accomplished is one of the main difficulties in tracking dependencies. Team conversations during backlog sessions frequently uncover dependencies as requirements are explored. These discussions aid in determining the connections between tasks and the priority order in which they should be completed. Teams may provide a clear roadmap for project execution by documenting these requirements inside Azure DevOps. 

Dependency tracking is made easier with capabilities that Azure DevOps provides. Teams can create connections between various work items, such as tasks, features, and epics, using the linking function. Teams can comprehend the interdependencies between distinct components by tying items together to create a visual representation of the project hierarchy. In order to accurately portray certain dependencies, other sorts of linkages, such as parent-child relationships or related tasks, can be used. 

Despite the fact that the linking feature offers a thorough perspective of the project hierarchy, team members may not always be aware of it, especially if they are not actively looking for it. Individuals can adopt additional strategies like highlighting dependencies within work item descriptions or using bold text to emphasize their precedence. These methods aid in highlighting important dependencies and increasing their visibility to the entire team. 

For successful Dynamics 365 implementations and project management, dependencies must be tracked. Azure DevOps provides teams with a comprehensive grasp of the project’s structure and interrelationships by offering robust tools and features to detect and track dependencies. Teams can increase cooperation and productivity and reduce hazards associated with unmanaged dependencies by leveraging tools like linking and using visual indicators. 

Teams may overcome the difficulties of managing dependencies using Azure DevOps, enabling more seamless coordination and effective project execution. Project teams may offer high-quality solutions with improved predictability and shorter time to market by leveraging these capabilities. 

Check out our podcasts on the same topic:

Our next two blogs will be discussing using 2 unique work items. Up first, Decisions! 

Project Management

Organize Projects for Success using Epics and Features

In our second blog of this Azure DevOps series, we dive into discussing how to effectively prioritize and organize work items that are essential for success in project management. Epics and features are two words that are frequently used in this context. We will examine the distinctions between epics and features and go over when to use each one. 

An epic is a significant piece of work that symbolizes a project’s grand, overarching objective or goal. It provides the project with a strategic perspective and acts as the highest level of grouping. Epics are frequently used to specify key features or parts of a system. 

In contrast, features are more precise and detailed than epics. They stand for distinct capabilities or features that help achieve the goals described in the epics. User stories or tasks can be subdivided into features, which are subcomponents of epics. 

Together, epics and features offer a hierarchical structure for classifying work items. While features divide the work into smaller, more manageable parts, epics define the overall scope. As an illustration, if the epic is “Account Management,” one of its features might be “Account Creation.” Features enable more thorough planning, requirement identification, and work assignment. 

Using epics and features to build a hierarchy has various advantages. It facilitates structure and allows teams to maintain alignment and focus. It is simpler to recognize dependencies, prioritize activities, and allocate resources efficiently when relevant objects are grouped together. 

Additionally, the hierarchical structure permits concurrent work. Team members with a variety of skill sets can work on several features at the same time, increasing productivity and efficiency. Additionally, it makes it possible to adopt agile approaches like sprints, where work can be split up into small chunks, enabling better planning and progress monitoring. 

Tools for managing and organizing projects successfully include epics and features. Epics offer a high-level perspective and specify the main goals while features divide the work into distinct parts. Project teams may stay organized, prioritize activities, recognize dependencies, and guarantee efficient communication in the direction of project success by using this hierarchical structure. Project management procedures and results can be greatly enhanced by being aware of the distinctions between epics and features as well as when to employ each of them. 

Check out our podcast episode All About Azure DevOps, part 1 where we discuss this topic and more! Ep 23 – All About Azure DevOps, part 1 – Dynamics Hotdish

Come back next week for a deep dive on how to effectively write User Stories for development. 

General

Introducing Our New Blog: Exploring Dynamics 365 CE, Power Platform, and Essential Soft Skills

Greetings! We are excited to announce the debut of our brand-new blog, which intends to serve as your go-to source for everything concerning Dynamics 365 CE, Power Platform, and the essential soft skills that support your professional development. We are pleased to welcome you to the realm of insightful analysis and professional expertise presented by our distinguished authors, Ashley Steiner, Ali Nelson, and Liz McGlennen. 

 

Why this Blog? 

You may already be familiar with our highly regarded Dynamics Hotdish podcast, which has been providing excellent information and engaging debates on a range of Dynamics-related subjects for more than two years. With this blog, we hope to enhance learning for our listeners and provide them with extra materials. We recognize that the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform environment is continually changing and that it can be difficult to stay current with the newest features, best practices, and soft skills. That’s where we come in. 

 

Meet the Authors 

Ashley Steiner: Ashley has been a Dynamics CRM administrator for more than ten years and has seen personally how the software has developed. Her comprehensive knowledge of the platform and its features will enable you to make the most of Dynamics 365 CE. 

Ali Nelson: Ali has a special talent for utilizing the Power Platform to transform complicated business needs into seamless solutions as a professional functional consultant. Her advice will help you through the complexities of creating reliable applications. 

Liz McGlennen: In the technical world, soft skills are frequently disregarded, but Liz is here to alter that. She will assist you with developing crucial soft skills like communication, leadership, and problem-solving with her background in psychology and a passion for professional growth. 

 

Topics We’ll Explore 

We’ll cover a variety of subjects in our blog, such as complex Dynamics 365 customization methods, Power Automate and Power Apps tips and tricks, efficient data management procedures, and much more. Additionally, we understand the value of soft skills in advancing careers, so you can anticipate pieces on developing your interpersonal skills, controlling stress, and overcoming obstacles at work. 

 

Join Us on This Journey 

Our blog will have something to offer everyone, regardless of whether you are an experienced Dynamics professional or are just getting started with the platform. We invite you to interact with our material, post questions, and share your thoughts in the comments. 

The crew is eager to start this new project, and we genuinely hope that this blog will be a useful tool for you as you explore Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Keep an eye out for our next articles and get ready to advance your abilities! 

Thank you for being a part of our community. 

 

Warm regards, 

The Dynamics Hotdish Team 

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