Useful links for Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Adoption

While looking for “Sure Step” around the web, it appears that the need for children’s orthotics is stealing the thunder, somewhat, from the needs of Microsoft Dynamics partners. And while we don’t want to pick on the kiddos, here are a few useful links we’ve found digging deeper into the pile of search results.

• The Sure Step Partner Adoption Roadmap: Outlining key steps, roles and responsibilities for adopting Sure Step. Includes a useful assessment to help you determine your need for a process overhaul. Developed for Microsoft by PACE.
• NAVigate Into Success: A blog dedicated to Dynamics NAV offers a review of the 2008 release of Sure Step. Includes a robust discussion that even Microsoft’s Aditya Mohan has contributed to.
• PartnerSource News announces the features and improvements of the Spring 2009 upgrades to Sure Step. Of course, you have to be a Microsoft Dynamics partner to read this … unless you read the blogs at TechNet or MSDN, that is!
• Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Axaptapedia, a wiki site for the Dynamics AX community, has a page devoted to Sure Step. However, this is a bit of a time capsule, as the page hasn’t been updated since 2007, not long after the initial release of the Sure Step methodology.

Tags: Microsoft Dynamics, Sure Step, sure step adoption

Partners Adopting Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Stand on top of the World

The top of the world lies between Tibet in China and Nepal. Between 1920 and 1952, seven major expeditions had failed to reach the summit. At 11.30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, Edmund Hilary stepped on top of the world to become the first person to stand 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on earth. The rewards & international recognition for so doing were great. What is perhaps not so well known is the expedition totaled over 400 people, including 362 porters, twenty Sherpa guides and 10,000 lbs of baggage and like many such expeditions, was a team effort.

The Five Camps of Sir Edmund Hillary's Quest

Many Microsoft Dynamics partners have set out on their expeditions to become amongst the first to adopt Microsoft Sure Step: Microsoft’s Dynamics implementation methodology. You may represent such a company. Feedback from companies such as yours is that having a well trodden path to follow would accelerate their adoption of Sure Step. Research such as IDC’s Eight Steps to Partner Profitability shows that the top 25% of Microsoft Dynamics partners have turned their implementation process into a true core competency, meaning their implementation process provides unique customer benefits, is not easy for their competitors to imitate, and sets them apart in the market place, enabling them to achieve higher profits.

Adopting Sure Step has its rewards but at the same time requires careful planning. Most importantly enlisting the help of a “Sherpa” to navigate your route and provide you with a set of tools and resources to enable your company to overcome the obstacles that likely will come your way is essential. These obstacles may not look and feel like the severe weather conditions that stopped those seven major expeditions who attempted but failed to stand on top of the world between 1929 and 1952, but very likely will have the same impact, if your company is not well prepared.

Researching and understanding what preparations are required and what it takes to be successful in adopting Sure Step has become a core competency for our company, PACE. Microsoft recently asked us to take on the role of Sherpa through the development of an adoption roadmap to help companies such as yours to accelerate their Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step adoption initiatives.

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Tags: Adoption Roadmap, Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step, Microsoft Partners, Sure Step, Top of the World

Announcing the Sure Step Partner Adoption Roadmap

Sure Step is a robust platform for the management of Microsoft Dynamics projects, created by Microsoft to help its partners deliver on-time, under-budget implementations for their customers. Last year, in a continuing effort to improve its user experience, Microsoft’s Sure Step team conducted an informal survey of some of their top partners, asking: “What is/was the biggest roadblock for your company when launching Sure Step?”

The answer that they received most commonly was: “The lack of a clear plan or map, to help us manage the process of adoptiong Sure Step.”

A few short months later, PACE is proud to announce the launch of a new site for Microsoft Dynamics Partners, the Sure Step Partner Adoption Roadmap.

This site contains two valuable tools to promote the growth of Microsoft Dynamics partners:

• Step-by-step guidance, for each role in your organization, toward a complete and successful adoption of Sure Step as your implementation methodology.
• A unique assessment that evaluates the maturity and completeness of your process adoption, whether you are currently using Sure Step, or some other implementation methodology.

The Adoption Roadmap leverages the PACE Cone of Adoption methodology, which identifies four pillars of process adoption:

• Process Design: Do you have written guidance that defines the goals, steps, and outcomes required to successfully execute your process?
• Acceptance of the Process: Have your people reviewed and accepted the process? Do they understand and accept the value of executing the process according to your design?
• Process Usage: Are your people using the process? Are they generating the value to your organization that is the goal of your process?
• Management Reinforcement: Is this process a business priority for your managers? Are they promoting its use, and using its outputs to make business decisions? Do they consider this process a core competency for your company?

A full and complete adoption of Sure Step isn’t just good for its own sake; it is a critical factor in the successful growth of Microsoft Dynamics partners. Recent research by IDC shows that the top quartile of growing Microsoft Dynamics Partners (with between 10-49 employees dedicated to the practice) rely on their implementation process to stay profitable and rapidly build their customer base during this turbulent period of change.

If you’d like to measure your organization against this top quartile, in terms of process adoption and execution, or if you’d like to follow our best-practice path for adopting Sure Step, visit the Sure Step Partner Adoption Roadmap today!

Tags: Adoption Roadmap, Measuring Adoption, Microsoft Dynamics, PACE Cone of Adoption Series, Sure Step