This article can help you determine when the time is right to upgrade your solution, and how you can use the ADKAR model to approach your potential upgrade.
Originally published in Q3 2017 D365UG/CRMUG Magazine
Many Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customers ask themselves this question at least once or twice a year: Is this the right time to upgrade our system? Or maybe even move it to the cloud? The question seems simple to answer, and the initial answer is, “Yes!” for most organizations. Yet as soon as they start thinking about the overwhelming amount of work that it takes to make the transition, the opinion changes to, “Not yet, maybe next year”, and that happens every year.
So how do we stop that cycle? How can we take action and make the move?
Well, Episode 10 of the CRM MVP Podcast, which came out on September 24, 2017, tackles change management and the strategies and tactics you can follow to successfully implement change in your organization. My guest was Microsoft MVP Clarissa Simpson, a world-class expert in governance and the chairperson on the D365UG/CRMUG Advisory Board. The strategies I discuss on that episode are directly pulled from the “ADKAR Model” for change management.
ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement; this model only works when you have all these factors implemented one after the other.
To upgrade, you need to be aware of the need for change; you need to understand why your organization NEEDS this change. And here’s where the biggest hurdle exists, in my opinion. I think that most organizations have a very narrow field of vision when it comes to the opportunities that will be available once the upgrade takes place. And this is not the organization’s fault. It is hard to track what you don’t have, it is hard to understand how your company can operate on a solution that “does not exist”, because even though Microsoft Dynamics 365 exists, you won’t see how it really works for your company until it has been customized to achieve your business objectives. What you can measure is what your current solution does for your organization. Companies where the solution is “doing alright” can’t see a clear need to change.
I believe most of the organizations who are currently using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, 2013, or 2015 really need to upgrade. If you are in one of these versions and you are reading this, you need to take action and upgrade your solution, now.
The reason why I say this is because I’ve seen this many times: Companies spend a lot of money and time configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and now the pain to move seems too great. The problem with these heavily customized CRM implementations is that for the most part, they are not flexible; they were set up in a way that addressed the needs of the business at a specific point in time. However, the idea of deploying a CRM system is to take the business to a new level, to accelerate the achievement of business objectives. But what happens when you achieve those objectives as a business? You evolve!
Businesses evolve, and their CRM solution needs to evolve with them. Once you achieve the business objectives you had with the initial deployment of your solution, find new objectives and configure or customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 to help you achieve those new objectives. It’s a cycle.
By forcing your Users to work with tools that were deployed based on how your organization worked years and years ago, you are holding them – and the business – back.
Upgrading gives you an opportunity to not only evaluate how some of the new available functionality can benefit your business and its objectives, but also to re-think existing processes.
When I started Elev8 Solutions in 2014, my first project was an upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to 2015, and since that time I’ve worked with at least 20 organizations on their upgrade process. These organizations ranged in size and scope, but they all follow the same upgrade procedure, and they all have similar challenges.
Some of the challenges I’ve seen are: Highly customized environments where the prospect of re-writing all of that functionality on a newer system sounds “impossible”, bad data or data owned by Users who are no longer with the company, integrations to too many legacy systems, third party solutions from vendors who no longer exist, not enough “manpower” to lead the upgrade project, too many “personal objects” (personal views, personal charts, personal dashboards, record shares, etc.; these are items that cannot be exported into a solution), and so on.
All of these challenges can be addressed, and most of them have very simple solutions. Many organizations have gone through an upgrade process before you, and the lessons learned on those upgrades can be used to minimize the impact on your own upgrade process.
So here is what I suggest. This time around, follow the ADKAR model in approaching the upgrade. First, focus on understanding WHY your organization needs to upgrade; don’t worry about budget or manpower or technical complexities, just focus on “the why”. Once you have a clear understanding of why you need to upgrade, focus on the “desire” part; focus on tactics that will help the organization build the desire for change, or in this case, the desire to upgrade. (Unfortunately, I don’t have the whole magazine to dive into the tactics we like to leverage to build desire, but the ADKAR book does a great job detailing some of those tactics, so order the book and implement the techniques.)
Once the organization has the desire to upgrade, gather knowledge. Understand what’s needed to accomplish the upgrade. This is a great time for you to re-evaluate whether the platform that was used to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM is still the right one for the organization. Remember that the organization AND Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Microsoft Dynamics 365, for that matter, have both evolved since then. Since you are on-premises, take some time to evaluate Dynamics 365 and see if the showstoppers that prevented your organization from going to the cloud a few years ago are still in place. Dynamics 365 is no longer “targeted for SMBs”, and no longer is it available just in a couple of regions. Today, Dynamics 365 is available all over the world, and the number of regions has probably doubled or tripled since the time your organization deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Once you have gathered “the knowledge” regarding how to accomplish your upgrade, take some time to assess your ability to accomplish a successful upgrade. If you are happy with the Partner you have been working with until now, make sure you involve them in this process. Partners can identify areas that you probably would miss; for example, licensing implications, upgrade schedules, satellite solutions that can benefit your organization after the upgrade, and more. There are also tons of great sessions at D365UG/CRMUG Summit, amazing technical articles written by experts, and you can always get some training to fill any gaps you may have.
As you move forward with the upgrade – hopefully to Dynamics 365 – don’t forget “reinforcing”, which is the last element of the ADKAR model. Reinforcement, in the case of an upgrade, will come from preventing the creation of the same challenges you saw before the upgrade. For example, minimize the amount of code written to accomplish functionality (obsess over how you can get the most value from the out of-the-box functionality in Dynamics 365, or work with a Partner who does), assign records from former employees to active Users, and design and implement a lifecycle management schedule to not only deploy new functionality, but also to update your existing solution. This last one is especially important when you go online because Microsoft will release updates for Dynamics 365 at least twice a year.
Speaking of going online, did you know that Microsoft has created a service that allows you to upload your CRM database to the cloud and have it upgraded all the way to Dynamics 365? Yes, this exists, and it takes a database as old as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. By the time this article is published, the service will still be on private preview mode and not recommended for production upgrades, but it’s coming. Microsoft is making it really easy to move to the cloud.
So, no more “we’ll re-evaluate next year”; take action now, follow a change management model, and give your organization a solution that matches its current business objectives.