#162. Unlocking hidden Microsoft partner benefits? Now that’s my kind of secret!

In this episode, I spill the beans on how Dynamics 365 and Power Platform partners can get their teams Scrum trained and certified — on Microsoft’s dime, without touching your training budget, thanks to Microsoft Incentive co-op funds.

I walk you through what co-op funds are, how to check your eligibility, and exactly how to claim full reimbursement for my Successful Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps course.

The course is tailored specifically for your teams building Microsoft business apps, not just any software project. I share stories from the trenches, like $4 million Dynamics implementations and global customer service transformations, to show the practical impact of genuine Scrum on delivery teams, customer satisfaction, and project profitability.

You’ll hear testimonials from consulting partners and students who have used these tactics to become Microsoft Partner of the Year winners—and happier, lower-stress teams as well.

There’s even an Exam Pass Guarantee (so your team can certify with confidence), plus step-by-step instructions on using those mysterious co-op funds before they expire.

Curious if it really works? Microsoft themselves give it the green light—and I’ll show you how to make it happen. Listen to this episode to discover how to turn unused partner benefits into highly skilled, adaptable delivery pros, and set your practice apart. Ready to build amazing apps, supercharge your team, and let Microsoft foot the bill?

• Book a call with Neil
• Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps
• How to get your training investment reimbursed

👋 LET'S CONNECT

🌐 Subscribe to Customery Academy newsletter for new episode announcements and special offers

🟥 Subscribe on YouTube

🟦 Follow on LinkedIn

🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn

🦋 Neil Benson on BlueSky

⭐ RATE AND REVIEW THE SHOW

👍 Rate Amazing Apps

👨‍💻 MY ONLINE COURSES

🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps

🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps

📐 Estimating Business Apps

#161. Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner: every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated.

Because no one wins overestimated projects...

#160. Hamish Sheild is a Microsoft MVP and Power Platform consultant specialising in applying Design Thinking practices to our apps and projects to make them more human-centred. Hamish and I discuss the different activities and artifacts we've experimented with before starting the delivery phase of our Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects.

Join us as we discuss:

03:43 Design thinking exercises and goal setting

08:45 Inclusion of developers in the discovery phase

09:48 Importance of day in the life sessions

11:59 Exploration of design sprints

17:10 Creating customer and user journey maps

18:48 Utilizing user story maps for clarity

24:21 The role of prototyping in projects

25:11 Developing solution blueprints with Dynamics 365

30:18 Size and refinement of initial product backlog

32:02 Establishing environments

32:48 Business process maps

35:35 Crafting stakeholder maps for project success

HAMISH SHEILD

• Hamish Sheild on LinkedIn
• AppRising
• Designing Business Applications

RESOURCES

• Avion for user story mapping
• StoriesOnBoard for user story mapping
• Miro for visual collaboration

RECOMMENDED EPISODES

• 130 Sprint 1 is Done!
• 120 Defining Requirements for Complex Power Apps with Hamish Sheild

👋 LET'S CONNECT

🌐 Subscribe to Customery Academy newsletter for new episode announcements and special offers

🟥 Subscribe on YouTube

🟦 Follow on LinkedIn

🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn

🦋 Neil Benson on BlueSky

⭐ RATE AND REVIEW THE SHOW

👍 Rate Amazing Apps

👨‍💻 MY ONLINE COURSES

🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps

🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps

📐 Estimating Business Apps

#159. Should you use a traditional, waterfall approach to build Power Platform apps?

In this episode, I break down six situations when you might be tempted to use a waterfall method and share my thoughts on whether that's really the best approach.

00:11 Everyone should try waterfall at least once.

02:18 When to adopt a waterfall approach

02:53 #1 Predictable and well-defined requirements

04:19 #2 Regulated industries

05:49 #3 Fixed-price contracts

06:59 #4 Small or simple projects

08:02 #5 No agile experience

08:59 #6 Lots of dependencies

10:09 Recap `

• Estimating Agile Business Apps: learn how to quickly, accurately and confidently estimate how long it'll take and how much it'll cost to build your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 app.
• Cynefin Model: learn how to approach different problems from simple to complex.
• Successful Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps: learn the Scrum framework, prepare for certification and discover my proven practices for successfully applying Scrum for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
• Team Topologies: Matthew Skelton discusses how different team topologies can reduce the impact of dependencies across an organisation.

#158. It's 2025, and I still meet Power Platform and Dynamics 365 professionals that don't know what Scrum is or have an incomplete understanding of what Scrum is. Especially in job interviews!

In this short episode, you'll learn:

• What Scrum really is
• Why it's a framework and not a methodology
• A simple hack for remembering the 18 components of Scrum

🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps: Learn the basics and benefits about adopting agile approach to building business applications. https://customery.com/foundations

#157. Rethink the role of the scrum master. Two recent events—a thought-provoking article by agile coach Maarten Dalmijn and a leave of absence by Matthew, a beloved scrum master in my team—prompted me to question if scrum masters might be overrated.

Comparing scrum teams to sports teams like Ultimate Frisbee, where players self-regulate without referees. Imagine a world where your scrum team operates the same way, holding each other accountable and mastering the game without a dedicated scrum master.

You'll learn about Maarten's controversial stance: in startups and scale-ups with fewer organizational impediments, having a scrum master might be unnecessary overhead. Instead, Martin suggests that with a deep understanding of scrum, your team could self-manage effectively.

I share my own team's bold experiment—replacing a traditional scrum master with a hybrid scrum master-developer. Spearheaded by Sapan, who has extensive experience in both development and scrum, this experiment offers surprising results.

It's not a one-size-fits-all solution for all Power Platform teams. But it does highlight the importance of being open to new practices and continuous experimentation in agile development.

Keep experimenting 🧪

-Neil

RESOURCES

• Maarten Dalmijn on LinkedIn
• Maarten Dalmijn, 'Are Scrum Masters Too Much Overhead?'

#156. Drawing on the book "Mastering Professional Scrum" by Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl, I outline critical areas for team success, such as creating valuable products and understanding organizational influences. I emphasize five core capabilities needed for continuous improvement: teaching, facilitation, coaching, technical excellence, and servant leadership.

I discuss the continuous improvement process recommended by Ockerman and Reindl, which includes self-assessment questionnaires and root cause analysis to address team issues. I highlight 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, I underscore the significance of being cross-functional, self-managing, and collaborative. I touch 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.

You'll also learn about common challenges, such as the absence of key roles during refinement sessions, and recommends using the Five Whys technique to tackle root causes. I provide practical tips like conducting multiple short refinement sessions to prevent release delays.

RESOURCES

• Simon Reindl on LinkedIn
• Stephanie Ockerman on LinkedIn
• Mastering Professional Scrum from Amazon (affiliate)
• Mastering Professional Scrum audiobook on Audible (affiliate)
• Stephanie Ockerman's site, Agile Socks
• Mastering Professional Scrum on InformIT

#155. Explore the importance of rethinking our approach to building business applications. Discover 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 🧪

-Neil

RESOURCES

• Microsoft Power Platform Conference, 18 to 20 October 2024
• Peter Attia’s The Drive podcast
• Outlive by Peter Attia
• Peter Attia’s website
• Adam Grant’s podcasts
• Adam Grant’s website

Subscribe to my new Estimating Business Apps podcast mini-series

Estimating 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

#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 Scrum

Join 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/3secrets

#153.  Keith Atherton is 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.

Keep experimenting 🧪

-Neil

Keith Atherton

• Keith 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/

Resources

• Keith'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/overview

CONNECT

🌏 Amazing Apps website

🟦 Customery on LinkedIn

🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn

MY ONLINE COURSES

🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps

🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps

📐 Estimating Business Apps