June 16, 2025 • 39 mins
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🎙️FULL SHOW NOTES
https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/697
What if you could prevent most software project failures before they even begin? In this episode, we dive into the origins and evolution of Microsoft’s FastTrack program and the Success by Design framework—a powerful approach that’s transforming how enterprise tech projects are delivered. Pedro Sacramento and Alok Singh, two principal program managers at Microsoft, share how a simple spreadsheet of lessons learned became a global standard for cloud implementation success. Whether you're leading a project or scaling a practice, this conversation is packed with insights to help you build smarter, faster, and with confidence.
🔑KEY TAKEAWAYS
80% of project issues are preventable: Most failures stem from misalignment early in the project lifecycle—Success by Design addresses this head-on
Early engagement is critical: Projects that adopt the framework early see 2.2x higher user adoption and fewer escalations.
From firefighting to foresight: FastTrack evolved from solving crises to proactively guiding success through repeatable patterns and best practices.
Scalable success through partners: With over 120 partners trained, Microsoft has extended its reach to thousands of projects globally.
Recognition that matters: The FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect designation is earned through real-world impact—not theory.
🧰 RESOURCES MENTIONED
👉About Microsoft FastTrack for Dynamics 365 - Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
👉https://aka.ms/D365FastTrackPortfolioPartners
👉What is the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal? - Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
👉What is the Dynamics 365 implementation guide? - Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
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Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:01):
Welcome to the Co-Pilot Show where I interview
Microsoft staff innovating withAI.
I hope you will find thispodcast educational and inspire
you to do more with this greattechnology.
Now let's get on with the show.
In this episode, we'll befocusing on Success by Design
Framework and how that is partof the FastTrack program within
(00:26):
Microsoft.
Today's guests are fromPortugal and the United Kingdom.
They both work at Microsoft asprincipal program managers.
You can find links to their bioand socials in the show notes
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Pedro andAlok.
Pedro Sacramento (00:40):
Thank you, Mark.
Mark Smith (00:41):
Sure Good to have you on.
My opening question foreverybody is food, family and
fun the three Fs.
What do they mean to you, mark?
Sure Good to have you on.
I always my opening questionfor everybody is food, family
and fun the three Fs.
What do they mean to you, pedro?
Pedro Sacramento (00:49):
Family means everything to me, and you can
see them right there, I think.
So that's my family, my wifeand my two kids, my two
daughters.
I'm from Portugal, so it'ssomething that is really
important to me and fun, ofcourse.
That's what we do with familyoutside of the work.
Nice, and to your portuguesetarts oh, put your starts yeah,
(01:11):
of course, of course, yeah, yeahyou know, they're never as good
.
Mark Smith (01:16):
I've had them all over the world and they're never
as good as in portugal.
Pedro Sacramento (01:20):
Yeah, you cannot get close to what we have
here.
You might try, they might try,but you cannot get close.
That's true.
Mark Smith (01:27):
The reason I went to Portugal is because I love port
and to spend time in those portcaves, those wine caves in
Porto.
Man, just amazing.
I'm building a new house andthe back area of my house is
modeled on one of the caves thatwe went to.
They had this outdoor area andI'm modeling the whole very
(01:49):
large pergola with grapevinesgrowing up every post as part of
it.
So, yeah, I love Portugal.
I could live in Porto.
I think I was there for theFestival of St Jao and I will
never forget that full, fullnight experience that the
Portuguese provide, and havinggarlic flowers put in my face
(02:10):
and hit on the head with ahammer Just the pure joy of
everybody, young and old, was afantastic experience.
Alok, tell us about you.
Alok Singh (02:21):
Well, first thing is I need to go to Portugal.
That's been on my path, but Ihaven't done that.
So for sure I mean again.
I'm married with two kids, mywife and me.
We moved to the UK almost been10 years now, wow.
And then, yeah, both mydaughters were born here.
I have a seven-year-old and atwo-year-old, and I think a lot
(02:42):
of fun revolves around them andyou know, honestly, they're the
center of everything that we do.
When it comes to food, I mean,obviously, I do love my chicken,
tikka masala and all thebiryani, that you can get some
great food here in the UK, andIndian food is lovely here as
well.
I do love my fish and chips inWellington.
(03:03):
So for sure, yeah, I would callmyself a foodie, I feel, in
London.
Mark Smith (03:09):
are you based in London?
Alok Singh (03:10):
Just around London area west of London between
Reading and London, if you will.
Mark Smith (03:14):
Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I found in London, in
South London, you got the bestIndian food.
Interesting, that was myexperience.
I went out there at one pointto visit a friend of mine who
was a doctor and working at ahospital out there and she took
us out for indian food there andI was living in west hampstead
and we, you know, had a coupleof you know curry shops and
stuff, but nothing was the fooddown there, and the restaurant
(03:38):
we particularly, was just jammedwall to wall, people coming and
going and just absolutely tasty, amazing food.
I just pushed my two-year-oldout the door for this podcast,
like Papa, why can't I stay?
You can't stay, so I knowhaving young kids.
Tell me about the origins ofthe Fast Track program.
Alok Singh (04:01):
It's interesting because it was almost a decade
ago and wasn't called FastTrackat the time.
Right, what was it called?
It was the SA team, a solutionarchitects team, and our history
with naming has been a bitinteresting, so we just called
it a group of solutionarchitects.
And if you look at it withinany product group or engineering
(04:21):
organization, you have peoplefocused on building the product,
your core engineering team,development teams.
You have the product managerswho are setting the direction,
deciding on what needs to bebuilt into the product, and
these solution architects werenot doing both of those things
but essentially were sitting atthe periphery of the engineering
organizations and plugging intosome of our largest, most
(04:45):
complex implementations that wewere seeing around the globe.
And, to be honest, in the earlystages this was a lot to do with
firefighting, going andaddressing the challenges.
The whole cloud thing was newas well, so a lot of these
customers were actually firsttime implementing in cloud,
which means there was a lot ofsurprise, the sense of loss of
(05:08):
control, and a big part of thejob that the solution architect
team did was going and puttingoff these fires right, dealing
with exact level escalation.
So it kind of started fromthere, it from there and,
interestingly, what the solutionarchitects observed is 80% of
(05:28):
the problems that they wereseeing on these projects, which,
in many cases, you know tookweeks and months to resolve and
you know they would go in as theheroes and save the day.
But it took longer than a dayand they realized that 80% of
these things are actuallytotally avoidable If we were
able to set some of thedirectional aspects of the
implementation early on, betteraligned to what the product is
(05:52):
designed to do or, in a way,it's meant to be used as well.
So there were lots of learningsfrom these firefighting
escalation situations and that'swhat led us to almost mature
this engagement model, to saythat what we don't want to be in
this firefighting business,what we are going to do, is find
a way to engage early on inthese projects and guide the
(06:14):
implementation teams to success.
So that was almost the earlyorigins of FastTrack, but we
learned quite a few things.
It had to do with maybe, youknow, just getting ready for the
cloud itself, the mindset,because a lot of these
implementation teams ordevelopers were coming from a
custom app dev, which means whenthey looked at a SaaS product
(06:34):
or a service, they were thinkingI'm still going to do my custom
app dev, but if my featurerequirement exactly matches what
it offers, then I'll probablyuse that.
So it was SaaS, but still inmany ways a custom app dev.
So yeah, there are a lot ofchallenges and I think it had to
do with the approach toimplementation in many cases.
(06:55):
I think that I would say wouldbe the origins of FastTrack
somewhere eight or nine yearsback now.
Mark Smith (07:00):
Yeah, and success by design framework.
How does that interact with thefast track program?
Alok Singh (07:07):
Yeah, I'll also let Pedro come in and share a few
things.
But when we started offessentially as the team of
architects, we were working onthese and we created this shared
space.
We are keeping track of thethings that we were recording as
learnings right On this project.
I saw this and this was thething that we could have done
right, and that shared Excelessentially became, you know, a
(07:31):
set of learnings that we learnedfrom, you know maybe hundreds
of projects at the time, and Ithink it was James Phillips at
the time who started giving it aname Success by Design, but
kind of Success by Designstarted in the form of a shared
Excel before.
Success by Design, but kind ofSuccess by Design started in the
form of a shared Excel beforeSuccess by Design, if you will.
But the crux of it was what weare learning from these projects
(07:51):
.
You know, where are thepatterns, anti-patterns, how we
should avoid that maybe in thenext project, and then also
understanding from a productperspective what can we improve
to make sure that our customersand partners are not running
into those challenges?
So there were two sides of theequation.
One was, you know, guidance anddirection, best practices on
(08:12):
the implementation projects toour partners and customers, but
also, on the other side,bringing that back into our
engineering and product teams aswell.
I think that was superfundamental to improve the
overall maturity of the productand how we guide our partners to
go and implement it as well.
Mark Smith (08:31):
So as an internal team, as a success to my design
as internal Microsoft engineersand their experience on these
projects, and then out of thatgrew FastTrack.
Prior to cloud, we had on-premand we had a framework similar
called dynamics 365, surestepand did any artifacts or because
(08:54):
that used to be a massivelibrary of templates.
You know you'd have your fitgap analysis documentation, you
would have know your scopingdocuments, you'd have your
architectural documents, a wholerange of library of assets.
Back in the day Is this thenatural iteration of what that
was, an on-prem world kind oftooling.
(09:16):
And then we now in the fasttrack, with success by design
being the cloud equivalent.
Alok Singh (09:22):
I think it's interesting because when we
started off with this, it wasn'treally for us an evolution of
show step.
It was, I would say, not atheoretical or an academic
exercise, but really the thingsthat we were just seeing on the
ground and almost sharing witheach other that this is where we
can go and avoid these specificchallenges or how do we shape
(09:45):
the work that the implementationteam is doing.
So I wouldn't say that successby design is an evolution of
what we had from a ShareStepperspective, but also ShareStep
or the methodologies that ourpartners used.
That had evolved significantlyand I think every partner had a
different way of doing it, theirown kind of flavor of
methodology, and going andtrying to impose a new
(10:07):
methodology we didn't think wasthe right thing and wasn't even
necessary to drive the successthat we were looking for.
Mark Smith (10:13):
If we look at FastTrack now and we're what?
Nine, 10 years on, how manyprojects are potentially and I
know you might not have an exactfigure representing this data
set now, like, in other words,and the reason I asked last time
, I heard I don't know how longago this is about 30,000
projects have fed into the bodyof work that makes up Success by
(10:38):
Design and the Fast Trackprogram.
Is that kind of still arepresentative number, or is it
higher?
Alok Singh (10:45):
Is that kind of still a representative number or
is it higher?
Yeah, I think and I don't knowwhen we started kind of counting
on some of these programs wereformalized, but at least from
the time that I've been in theteam and we formally announced,
you know, success by Design, ourimplementation guides and
frameworks etc.
We have over 8,000 to 10,000projects for sure that have gone
live with FastTrack and haveadopted Success by Design.
(11:07):
That's the number that I'veseen.
Pedro Sacramento (11:10):
And those might be more.
Sorry, mark, just to say onething when we step of engagement
, it was one to many.
There was one FastTracksolution architect working with
many customers, but since thenwe've onboarded partners.
So I think that Al wasmentioning that we have now 120
partners and they are also usingor leveraging Success by Design
framework with their customers.
(11:30):
So if you just imagine thescale of it, right?
So now it's not one fast tracksolution architect working with
many customers, it's alsopartners working with all of
their customers, right, whichkind of grows those numbers by a
lot.
Mark Smith (11:42):
Yeah, yeah For sure.
You know there's been a statround and I can trace back.
There's an academic reportthat's been done on it and it's
only top of mind for me becauseI'm currently writing a book on
project failures and, well, howto make projects successful more
to the point.
But there's a stat around 70%of all software projects fail
because of not having a kind ofwell one.
(12:06):
User adoption is a big part ofit, but really not having a
framework around.
Have you noticed that?
You know, with the programbeing in place, that that number
has turned to much more successover time.
You know, back when I started mycareer in the space, there was
a undocumented thing known asMicrosoft Make it Right money
(12:31):
and that was where Microsoftdidn't want to suffer brand
reputational risk because apartner had basically skewed a
project right.
And you know I remember beingpulled on one project.
It was sold and you think thiswas 15 years ago.
It was sold for $800,000.
I was called in when it got to$1.8 million as to what has gone
(12:53):
wrong.
And when you looked at it itwas fundamental stuff right, no
project governance, no projectmanagement, no change management
.
It wasn't.
And, of course, what does acustomer do.
Oh, the tech is broken, right?
I remember being pulled into incanberra in australia by
microsoft to talk to what the Ithink it was the second largest
(13:14):
agency big dynamics,implementation of them going the
product's broken.
Took me a quick look to seethat the product wasn't broken.
People had engineered overengineered, done stuff that was
back then outside the sdk inbreach of it because they didn't
even know that sdk existed,type thing.
And yet they get called onthese big projects.
(13:36):
And so have you seen a turn ofthe tide to the projects that
have been under the coveringbeing much more successful as a
standard, like success by design, rather than the failures that
we've seen in software projectsin the past 100%.
Alok Singh (13:52):
I think what our data is showing is that when we
look at projects where FastTrackis engaged, we have early
engagement, and I think the wordearly is really key there.
Right, yeah, if we get engagedmaybe a month before the go live
, you know, success by design isnot going to make that
difference, right, yes, early on.
(14:15):
And when I say early on, it'sessentially when you have
understood the business problemthat you're trying to solve and
you've gone into you know, justcoming out of the discovery
phase, that this is how I'mgoing to go about this.
Right, that's the perfect timeto start using the Success by
Design framework.
Some of the reviews that we have, like the solution blueprint
review and engaging with thefast track architect if you have
one on your project rightsolution blueprint review and
(14:35):
engaging with the fast trackarchitect if you have one on
your project right and doingthat has shown that the adoption
is higher.
I think when we looked at thenumbers last and this was a few
years back it was 2.2x higheradoption we have seen on those
projects.
Anecdotally, if you just lookat the kind of challenges,
escalations, of firefightingthat we have to do, it's
significantly lower on theseprojects.
And the best part is what wehave seen here is that these
(14:57):
projects are the ones who aremore likely to benefit from the
future capabilities and thefeatures that are coming,
because the way this has beenbuilt, you're more aligned to
our product direction, right?
So I think that's been, I wouldsay, the key to our success and
the whole demand that we haveseen for this program and, mark,
I think that you described whySuccess by Design was created
(15:20):
Exactly what you were describing.
Pedro Sacramento (15:21):
I think that Alec was also laughing because
you were describing the issuesthat we encounter right,
sometimes just moving to thecloud and copying or mimicking
what was in on-premise andtrying to replicate it to online
, like all of those scenarios.
That's what we starteddocumenting, right, and
especially how to avoid them andhow to identify them in an
early stage.
(15:41):
That's why Alok is saying thatit's important for us to start
engaging in an early stage andnot just before the go-live.
Mark Smith (15:47):
Yeah, at what point did you go?
You know what, if we're goingto get the scale, we need to
bring partners and we need tokind of make sure they've been
trained in the way you know aswhat good looks like, get them
to understand it, get them touse the same nomenclature, talk
about it the same way and reallyimplement those success
(16:09):
principles.
How did that come about For me?
I was in Atlanta when JamesPhillips on stage announced the
first raft of outside MicrosoftFastTrack recognized solution
architects and that was veryprestigious recognition.
When was that?
What was the thinking arounddeciding?
Was it just purely scale?
Alok Singh (16:30):
I think it's a great question because if we look at
the whole kind of the FastTrackmodel and when we started
working with one customer at atime and when we're very early
stages of this program, right,we face a couple of challenges
and I'll be candid here thatwith some of the partners they
felt that microsoft is comingand auditing the work that
(16:50):
they're doing 100, like I wasthere.
Mark Smith (16:52):
I was that type of partner going what the freak?
I don't need you, I'm smarterthan you, yeah.
Alok Singh (16:57):
It felt like, you know, are we going to do things
that are going to make thepartner look bad in front of the
customer?
Right?
So that was one challenge.
The other thing was, when wesigned this SAW, we never
accounted for the time thatwe're going to spend with
FastTrack.
You're going to ask us to gothis solution blueprint review,
you're asking us to do thego-live readiness these things
(17:18):
are not accounted for.
So who's actually going to payfor this time, right?
Yes, yes.
So in super early stages ofFastTrack, we started seeing
these challenges and I think ittook us some time to actually
create that clarity with thepartner community that you know
this is not actually becoming anauditing.
We are saying that let'scollaborate really, really early
.
We set the direction right andthe product is evolving very
(17:43):
quickly.
There's a lot changing and Ithink we have been there around
when we moved to the one versionI don't know if you remember
that one version move, unifiedinterface move as well.
So there were a lot of shiftsthat were happening right, and
also partners and customers.
They were both struggling withthis constant change.
That's coming right.
Where do I go for direction?
Where do I go get help aroundthis?
(18:04):
And that's where I think thevalue of the fast track became
more and more clear.
Now they're not here to audit.
They are helping us betteralign to where Microsoft is
going, and this is a very fastmoving space, right.
That realization actually thenmade it super clear that
actually this is Microsoft'sinvestment into success rather
(18:26):
than auditing.
And it did feel like audit whenthings went wrong and we came
in really late, right, you'relike, but why didn't you do it
this way At that point?
It does feel like audit andhonestly, it makes everyone look
bad the partner Microsoft andin really late, right, you're
like, but why didn't you do itthis way At that point?
It does feel like audit and,honestly, it makes everyone look
bad the partner Microsoft andin many cases, you know the
approach that customer haspushed for as well.
Right, so early alignment isthe key here.
(18:46):
But to your point, tospecifically answer your
question we had to get throughthat barrier of FastTrack is not
an auditor, but actually yourcollaborator, right?
And once we came to that and weinvested in, some of our better
tooling and frameworks weremade publicly available for our
partners to consume.
I think that's when we feltthat we are ready for our
(19:07):
partners to go and do this ontheir own and we can support
them in the background.
So the level of directengagement from Microsoft wasn't
that necessary.
But I think understanding whatSuccess by Design, what
FastTrack is, and our investmentin tooling made significant
difference.
Pedro Sacramento (19:24):
And that second one investment.
I mean, we had to wait for themoment to come, because we
started, like Alec wasexplaining before, we started
this with a simple spreadsheet.
That's how it was born, right?
It was a spreadsheet, everyonechiming in and providing their
understanding and theirlearnings in an Excel
spreadsheet.
We've moved that to a propertool where everyone collaborates
(19:45):
as well to enrich the knowledgebase.
Now it's a portal that isavailable to partners and
partners can leverage.
So we had to grow in terms ofhow we documented, how we
collected all of our learningsand make them available.
At the same time, we weregrowing and showcasing the work
that we were doing, just also tohighlight that we are not
(20:05):
competing with anyone.
Right, we were here to help, soboth of them were happening at
the same time, and then theperfect moment happened, right.
Also, the launch of the guides.
I think that made everythingpossible.
Right, because we're alsosaying look, we've documented
everything and it's here or Imean not everything, but a big
amount of information and it'salso here for you to leverage.
(20:26):
Right?
All of that became availableand with that, we are also
showing that we are here to helpeveryone.
Alok Singh (20:31):
Yeah, yeah, the guides was a really good point
and it was actually JamesPhillips who nudged us.
I think he was meeting one ofthe customers in Australia.
They told well, fasttrack isgreat, but you know what we
don't want to always depend on?
You know, having FastTrack onevery single rollout or every
single phase, why don't youprovide us that guidance so we
all can, you know, consume itwhenever we want and make it
(20:53):
more self-serve?
It started off like animplementation guide book and I
think the idea was it came fromJames Phillips, me, pedro, I
think, the rest of the team itwas around eight or 10 of us who
were involved in putting thatbook together 800 odd pages yeah
, 700 or 800 pages PDF yeah.
Yeah, I think a lot of focus wason driving the right mindset
(21:15):
than going deep on the product.
But I think a lot of aspects ofthat book are actually updated.
It's in the docs now, so it'savailable to everyone.
Mark Smith (21:25):
Is it still a virtual document now that can be
updated?
I haven't looked at it for awhile.
Alok Singh (21:30):
I think it's moved to learn now Okay, yeah.
Pedro Sacramento (21:33):
It's just like any documentation that we
have.
It's breaking down by topics,and then you can navigate easily
.
Mark Smith (21:40):
How did you internally, so not the partner
side, but internally inMicrosoft?
Where's the differentiatorbetween you and the PowerCat
team and how you engage oncustomers?
Do you have a rules ofengagement, Because I know that
they stick to their importantcustomers?
From an architectural typereview We've seen in recent
(22:01):
times, is it well architected?
Alok Singh (22:04):
Yeah.
Mark Smith (22:04):
You know, also come out about two years ago, I think
it was in the BizApp space.
How is that all?
How do you handle who does whatand that you're not duplicating
effort and things like that?
Alok Singh (22:16):
that's a great question.
I think our focus areas eventhough, if you look at it from
org perspective, we are still,you know, part of the same
organization but our focus hasbeen more on the first party
dynamics, piece five apps andthat's always been the fast
track thing, while they focus onyou know platform in general,
including you knowID dev, etcetera.
(22:37):
So we would engage whereverthere's a first-party app and
they continue to focus on theplatform In terms of sharing our
learnings, success by Design,something that they have also
contributed on it.
From a power platformperspective, some of the
platform elements, the toolingthat we use internally to kind
of share these learnings or evento log things that engineering
(22:59):
needs to hear we all are joinedup on top of the V teams that we
have internally.
So we do have strongcollaboration, but I think our
engagement models and thecustomer coverage is really
different.
So they were focused on thekind of the top end of the
customers who are specificallytrying to roll out the platform
right and get that SID dev goingversus we were always on the
(23:21):
first party.
The good thing is that when itcomes to implementation portal
and how the tooling is evolvingin the near future on board the
Parkat team as well and they'llstart bringing their resources.
So from a partner perspective,it's going to be one place for
them to collaborate and trackall the engagements Perfect.
Mark Smith (23:41):
If we look at the FastTrack Recognize Solution
Architect and I've told this tomany people in my mind it's more
valuable than being an MVP andthe recognition of that and a
couple of reasons One like theMVP program, it's assessed each
year, so you can't do something15 years ago and still be
recognized for it today, which Ithink is critically important
in the speed of change, with twowave releases a year in the
(24:05):
space is there's all.
Everything's changed right,there's nothing permanent.
So I think the revalidation isgreat.
The other thing is you've gotto be on a project to get this
recognition.
You can't be book smart, youcan't be theoretical about it.
It is tied to actual work andand therefore my mind, I feel
(24:26):
it's the most prestigiousrecognition of the architectural
role.
That requires you to have notbeen an architect for just for
five minutes.
Right, you've got to have somehistory behind you and what you
do.
How do you make sure you don'tdilute that going forward?
You know that you don't dilutethe value, the recognition of
(24:49):
that, so that one customers,when they see somebody with a
fast track, recognizeddesignation, that they know this
is the cream of the crop, right?
These are people that havetenure.
They have been doing this for awhile.
I'm not dealing with the gradthat came out of university last
year, set the PL 600 exam andgot you know is like ah, I'm a
(25:15):
certified architect and you'relike, yeah, in theory you are.
You've never been in a projectthat started to go wrong, you've
never had to recover, you'venever made the mistakes, which
is a total different thing, andI think that this program takes
that into account and thereforeit is the cream of the crop.
How do you make sure it doesn'tget diluted in time?
Alok Singh (25:35):
Maybe what I'll do is I'll just talk a little bit
about the process and a littlebit about our thinking behind it
and how we go about mayberecognizing folks, because I
think we just met earlier todayon that as well.
So when we came up with theFast Work Recognized Solution
Architect, I think our idea wasagain going back to that
thinking of scale right, wecan't be there on every project
(25:59):
all the time.
We might do maybe one phase,but you know we just won't be
able to scale to covereverything all the time.
So what we started doing was,on specific projects, when we
see a partner architect who isworking with us and they're
bringing the right, I would say,success by design mindset.
I think that's almostfoundational to it.
What I mean by that mindsetessentially is they are not the
(26:24):
tech implementation team rightwhen I want you to go build me
that really blue, green, yellowbutton and they go and figure
out how shall I do that?
They're actually involved inunderstanding the business
problem and are part of thesolution team right Now.
They bring the technicalexpertise, but they know the
problem that they're trying tosolve.
I think that's the first thingthat we'll look at.
(26:45):
The next thing is the work thatthe architect is doing, and in
many cases it also involveschallenging the requirements
right, challenging the customerto effectively help them align
to how this problem can besolved with this product or with
the platform, because I thinkPedro mentioned this earlier and
(27:06):
we used to see a lot of thisbefore that you are now trying
to potentially replicate yourold system on a new platform,
with some tweaks here and there,but not holistically.
Looking at this platform as away to go solve a business
problem, right?
So, bringing that mindset andchallenging the customers to
(27:26):
make sure that they aremaximizing the value that they
can get from the product, that'sthe other thing that we look at
.
Other thing that we look at.
To me, the first go live whenthe project actually goes live
and many a times you know that'slike okay, that's a successful
go live that's really the start.
The true success is are youactually able to deliver
something that you can iterateon really quickly, right?
(27:48):
That's key.
So, which means you know you'redoing all the foundation
elements of ALM right.
Are you actually able to go andmake releases into production
every two weeks?
Do you have that set up?
So, are you really setting upthe customer for long-term
success and to be able toiterate, adopt new capabilities,
because that value realizationis going to rely on an ability
(28:12):
to iterate and that's anotherfactor that we look at.
So setting up the customer forlong-term success, I would say
so those three things kind ofdrive the success by design
mindset.
So that's primary.
And with the partner architects, where we see that, I think we
want to recognize them that evenif we are not there on this
project, they can go drive thissuccess right.
(28:33):
I think that was really thefundamental idea behind the
FDRSA.
Pedro Sacramento (28:37):
Nice, all right, and, if I can add, so I
think what Alec was saying isthat we look at different things
.
When we look at fast track,recognized architects, so
basically it's how they engagein projects and especially if or
when they go live, and if theygo live successfully, the
adoption of those projects, whatinnovation that is being
(28:58):
implemented.
We look at all of those right,so we kind of have a sense,
working with them day by day,how that project is going.
So we can do that analysis andmost of the times we work with
someone that not only in oneproject, in several projects,
right, because they move, likethe architects, especially the
architects, they move fromdifferent projects at the same
time.
So that's one of the areaswhere we work closer with them.
(29:21):
We can recognize their workright.
In terms of MVPs and I wasbriefly on the community growth
team a while back, so I wasdoing the MVP renewal process,
validation, let's call it likethat where we need to look at
what are the contributions forthat year, right, and I think
that we look at how the MVPs arecontributing to the community
(29:43):
and that can be by differentways, like events.
Speaking at events can be bycreating posts in blogs,
answering forum questions.
So it's all of thosecontributions.
It's also valuable.
I'm not saying that one is morevaluable than the other one,
it's not.
It's just a different way ofcontributing to the community,
so that's how we distinguishthem.
(30:03):
I'm not.
It's just a different way ofcontributing to the community,
so that's how we distinguishthem, right?
I'm not sure if there are plansto merge them eventually.
I don't know, and I know thatit's a sensitive topic.
I'm not even sure if that makessense.
I'm not saying it does.
I'm just saying that there aretwo different types of
recognitions that we give topeople.
One is how they contribute tothe community and the other one
(30:23):
is how they contribute toprojects and to implementations.
Mark Smith (30:24):
And to go-lives.
Yes, as I said, pre-call, I'dbe strongly opposed to them
merging together because I thinkthat the technical prowess that
comes with FastTrack RecognizeArchitect is an important
differentiator.
The other piece of advice notpiece of advice, but something
to consider that the little rubthat I've had with the program,
(30:45):
probably that's been identifiedin the last three years.
About a year ago I left IBM.
I was working for IBM inAustralia and we would work with
enterprise customers and thetrend that I noticed in the
market is that the big customersare relying less on partners.
Customers are relying less onpartners and the reason is the
global stage has changed.
(31:05):
Right Is that now?
If I'm a big, you know, 20 yearsago IT was in a lot of
organizations a separate areaand we don't have the expertise.
So we're bringing partners.
A maturity has happenedglobally.
Most people, if you're in acorporate environment, have a
level of IT skills that the sameperson in your role wouldn't
have had 20 years ago.
(31:26):
It's just a given right.
No one goes oh, I need to gofor Excel training.
Everyone uses it fromuniversity on, and so what?
I've noticed in these bigpartners that they are like hey,
why don't we just go out andset up our own internal practice
.
To run our projects We'll gohire the MVPs, the Fast Track
Recognized Architects, from apartner or whatever.
(31:48):
But of course the minute thatFast Track Recognized individual
leaves partner land, theprogram no longer applies.
And so I have seen in largecustomers in Australia,
architects that have beenformerly in partner land.
They go and become a dedicatedarchitect.
They're across the one projectI'm thinking of 44,000 seats,
(32:09):
licensed seats inside theorganization, so not small but
they can't get recognized as afast track recognized architect
even though they're applyingsuccess by design, but there's
that little rub that they're notin partner land.
They're applying success bydesign, but there's that little
rub that they're not in partnerland.
And I think that in recognitionof the changing landscape, like
to those individuals, thiswould be recognition back into
(32:32):
the companies that they'reworking for now, but also part
of their career progression,which is not available because
they don't work in partner land.
And I found it interesting whenwe talked just earlier that you
talked about 120 partners.
You've just reached that target.
So is it?
Do you see it more as aindividual contribution within a
partner or is it really for you?
(32:52):
Your framework requires apartner to own the designation
of their fast track recognizedarchitects internally.
Alok Singh (33:00):
Yeah, I think it's a very interesting point that you
mentioned.
I think we can maybe talk aboutthis whole trend of you know
in-house teams and you knowwhat's the perspective on that.
But when we fundamentallystarted with the FastTrack
Recognize solution architect,this came from our partner
success team.
So the team that was aligned topartner success, it's they who
(33:23):
essentially started off thisprogram and they partnered with
FastTrack to say that.
You know, we want to get thesignal from you on who are these
recognized within the, who arethe architects within the
partner community that we shouldrecognize for their good work,
right?
So the program is fundamentallyaligned to our partner success
program.
I get the same question becausewe run a lot of partner
(33:45):
bootcamps and stuff and I workwith customer architects as well
and they would come and saythat you know why can't I attend
that bootcamp, right?
Yes yes, I appreciate it.
I think there's something thatwe need to think about how do we
do that, you know, for thearchitects involved?
That's a good feedback.
I don't think I have a greatanswer right now.
Mark Smith (34:03):
No, as in I do, as in the minute I finished
answering the question, it cameto me it's funding lines, right,
the fact that it's funded viathe partner program makes it
very clear why it is a partnerthing.
Like, as I say, the minute Ifinished asking I realized, yes,
it's a funding line reason andthat's why it is.
It's a funding line reason andthat's why it is.
One little other stat I'llthrow in the co-founder of
(34:23):
LinkedIn, reid Hoffman, hasrecently said that by 2035, 50%
of the US workforce will becontractors, so they won't be
working, and I feel that's goingto apply to IT folks more than
ever.
Another trend that I've noticedin the last three to five years
, since the pandemic, really isthis massive move of very senior
(34:46):
skilled staff moving out ofpartner land and becoming
independent contractors, and sothey're going from project to
project and being verysuccessful and building a
reputation, hence why theygenerally have a backlog of
opportunities to go to, and Ijust wonder that, once again,
(35:07):
you know, an evolution may be instore.
Any final words?
Alok Singh (35:13):
I think, first of all, this has been a great
conversation and I'd love tomaybe keep talking about a lot
of these topics, but I thinkit's really our key focus now
and you know, maybe I want tohighlight this is that
everything that we do from asuccess by design perspective
you know, working with ourcustomers, enabling our partners
to do this we want todemocratize this guidance, this
(35:36):
content, so it's available outthere.
Even if you're not a partner, ifyou're just, you're just an
individual contractor or aconsultant working on a customer
project, you can go and use theself-serve capabilities of the
portal.
Yes, which means, at least fromour perspective, there's
nothing that's holding backanyone from benefiting from
(35:57):
Success by Design, from thecontent that we have and the
overall framework.
So we want to be inclusive.
Whether you're working with acustomer partner or an
individual contractor, we don'ttake away access to the tooling
and the content.
So that's there for you and themore you can adopt this on your
projects.
We have driven some greatsuccess and there's no reason
why you cannot use this anddrive success on your projects.
Pedro Sacramento (36:20):
I can give a couple of examples.
I'm not on the FastTrack teamanymore, so Al has more
information about the latest andgreatest about success by
design and how FastTrack isworking now, but I can tell that
while we were writing theimplementation guide, most of
the information that was there Imean I would love to get it on
my hands before I even work withDynamics, because it's also
(36:41):
applicable.
It's not something specific toDynamics, so there's a lot of
knowledge there that can beapplicable to other products,
other technologies as well.
And the second thing is I'vemoved out of the FastTrack team
but even today I still leveragesuccess by design principles.
So my current team I'veimplemented a checklist, for
example.
That's something that comeswith success by design and even
(37:03):
with the implementation guidesat the end of each chapter we
create a checklist right, so Iuse that often.
I go back to that wheresomething is not clear, where I
think that we need to have someguidance on what is the goal,
what is the outcome.
I use it often.
So there are a lot ofadvantages of leveraging not
only dynamics with PowerPlatform, but also with other
(37:26):
products as well.
Mark Smith (37:26):
Yeah, I like the checklist idea.
There's a book called theChecklist Manifesto and a lot of
research was done in medicalinstitutions and constructing
large buildings and architectureand stuff and they found that
consistent success were thosethat implemented checklists.
So it's that mindset right.
It's those fundamentals.
Alok Singh (37:45):
It was James Phillips who insisted that we
have a checklist at the end ofevery chapter.
Mark Smith (37:49):
Yeah, interesting, interesting, great guy, great
guy.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I've really enjoyed this.
I found it an enlighteningdiscussion.
I really hope a lot of peopleget value and look up.
We'll put in the show notesresources to the portal that
were discussed for the variousassets.
So go learn, find out more andconsider implementing a mindset
(38:12):
of success in your projects.
Great Chad, thanks, mark.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host, mark Smith,otherwise known as the NZ365 guy
.
Is there a guest you would liketo see on the show from
Microsoft?
Please message me on LinkedInand I'll see what I can do.
Final question for you how willyou create with Copilot today,
(38:32):
ka kite.
Welcome to the Co-Pilot Show where I interview
Microsoft staff innovating withAI.
I hope you will find thispodcast educational and inspire
you to do more with this greattechnology.
Now let's get on with the show.
In this episode, we'll befocusing on Success by Design
Framework and how that is partof the FastTrack program within
(00:26):
Microsoft.
Today's guests are fromPortugal and the United Kingdom.
They both work at Microsoft asprincipal program managers.
You can find links to their bioand socials in the show notes
for this episode.
Welcome to the show, Pedro andAlok.
Pedro Sacramento (00:40):
Thank you, Mark.
Mark Smith (00:41):
Sure Good to have you on.
My opening question foreverybody is food, family and
fun the three Fs.
What do they mean to you, mark?
Sure Good to have you on.
I always my opening questionfor everybody is food, family
and fun the three Fs.
What do they mean to you, pedro?
Pedro Sacramento (00:49):
Family means everything to me, and you can
see them right there, I think.
So that's my family, my wifeand my two kids, my two
daughters.
I'm from Portugal, so it'ssomething that is really
important to me and fun, ofcourse.
That's what we do with familyoutside of the work.
Nice, and to your portuguesetarts oh, put your starts yeah,
(01:11):
of course, of course, yeah, yeahyou know, they're never as good
.
Mark Smith (01:16):
I've had them all over the world and they're never
as good as in portugal.
Pedro Sacramento (01:20):
Yeah, you cannot get close to what we have
here.
You might try, they might try,but you cannot get close.
That's true.
Mark Smith (01:27):
The reason I went to Portugal is because I love port
and to spend time in those portcaves, those wine caves in
Porto.
Man, just amazing.
I'm building a new house andthe back area of my house is
modeled on one of the caves thatwe went to.
They had this outdoor area andI'm modeling the whole very
(01:49):
large pergola with grapevinesgrowing up every post as part of
it.
So, yeah, I love Portugal.
I could live in Porto.
I think I was there for theFestival of St Jao and I will
never forget that full, fullnight experience that the
Portuguese provide, and havinggarlic flowers put in my face
(02:10):
and hit on the head with ahammer Just the pure joy of
everybody, young and old, was afantastic experience.
Alok, tell us about you.
Alok Singh (02:21):
Well, first thing is I need to go to Portugal.
That's been on my path, but Ihaven't done that.
So for sure I mean again.
I'm married with two kids, mywife and me.
We moved to the UK almost been10 years now, wow.
And then, yeah, both mydaughters were born here.
I have a seven-year-old and atwo-year-old, and I think a lot
(02:42):
of fun revolves around them andyou know, honestly, they're the
center of everything that we do.
When it comes to food, I mean,obviously, I do love my chicken,
tikka masala and all thebiryani, that you can get some
great food here in the UK, andIndian food is lovely here as
well.
I do love my fish and chips inWellington.
(03:03):
So for sure, yeah, I would callmyself a foodie, I feel, in
London.
Mark Smith (03:09):
are you based in London?
Alok Singh (03:10):
Just around London area west of London between
Reading and London, if you will.
Mark Smith (03:14):
Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I found in London, in
South London, you got the bestIndian food.
Interesting, that was myexperience.
I went out there at one pointto visit a friend of mine who
was a doctor and working at ahospital out there and she took
us out for indian food there andI was living in west hampstead
and we, you know, had a coupleof you know curry shops and
stuff, but nothing was the fooddown there, and the restaurant
(03:38):
we particularly, was just jammedwall to wall, people coming and
going and just absolutely tasty, amazing food.
I just pushed my two-year-oldout the door for this podcast,
like Papa, why can't I stay?
You can't stay, so I knowhaving young kids.
Tell me about the origins ofthe Fast Track program.
Alok Singh (04:01):
It's interesting because it was almost a decade
ago and wasn't called FastTrackat the time.
Right, what was it called?
It was the SA team, a solutionarchitects team, and our history
with naming has been a bitinteresting, so we just called
it a group of solutionarchitects.
And if you look at it withinany product group or engineering
(04:21):
organization, you have peoplefocused on building the product,
your core engineering team,development teams.
You have the product managerswho are setting the direction,
deciding on what needs to bebuilt into the product, and
these solution architects werenot doing both of those things
but essentially were sitting atthe periphery of the engineering
organizations and plugging intosome of our largest, most
(04:45):
complex implementations that wewere seeing around the globe.
And, to be honest, in the earlystages this was a lot to do with
firefighting, going andaddressing the challenges.
The whole cloud thing was newas well, so a lot of these
customers were actually firsttime implementing in cloud,
which means there was a lot ofsurprise, the sense of loss of
(05:08):
control, and a big part of thejob that the solution architect
team did was going and puttingoff these fires right, dealing
with exact level escalation.
So it kind of started fromthere, it from there and,
interestingly, what the solutionarchitects observed is 80% of
(05:28):
the problems that they wereseeing on these projects, which,
in many cases, you know tookweeks and months to resolve and
you know they would go in as theheroes and save the day.
But it took longer than a dayand they realized that 80% of
these things are actuallytotally avoidable If we were
able to set some of thedirectional aspects of the
implementation early on, betteraligned to what the product is
(05:52):
designed to do or, in a way,it's meant to be used as well.
So there were lots of learningsfrom these firefighting
escalation situations and that'swhat led us to almost mature
this engagement model, to saythat what we don't want to be in
this firefighting business,what we are going to do, is find
a way to engage early on inthese projects and guide the
(06:14):
implementation teams to success.
So that was almost the earlyorigins of FastTrack, but we
learned quite a few things.
It had to do with maybe, youknow, just getting ready for the
cloud itself, the mindset,because a lot of these
implementation teams ordevelopers were coming from a
custom app dev, which means whenthey looked at a SaaS product
(06:34):
or a service, they were thinkingI'm still going to do my custom
app dev, but if my featurerequirement exactly matches what
it offers, then I'll probablyuse that.
So it was SaaS, but still inmany ways a custom app dev.
So yeah, there are a lot ofchallenges and I think it had to
do with the approach toimplementation in many cases.
(06:55):
I think that I would say wouldbe the origins of FastTrack
somewhere eight or nine yearsback now.
Mark Smith (07:00):
Yeah, and success by design framework.
How does that interact with thefast track program?
Alok Singh (07:07):
Yeah, I'll also let Pedro come in and share a few
things.
But when we started offessentially as the team of
architects, we were working onthese and we created this shared
space.
We are keeping track of thethings that we were recording as
learnings right On this project.
I saw this and this was thething that we could have done
right, and that shared Excelessentially became, you know, a
(07:31):
set of learnings that we learnedfrom, you know maybe hundreds
of projects at the time, and Ithink it was James Phillips at
the time who started giving it aname Success by Design, but
kind of Success by Designstarted in the form of a shared
Excel before.
Success by Design, but kind ofSuccess by Design started in the
form of a shared Excel beforeSuccess by Design, if you will.
But the crux of it was what weare learning from these projects
(07:51):
.
You know, where are thepatterns, anti-patterns, how we
should avoid that maybe in thenext project, and then also
understanding from a productperspective what can we improve
to make sure that our customersand partners are not running
into those challenges?
So there were two sides of theequation.
One was, you know, guidance anddirection, best practices on
(08:12):
the implementation projects toour partners and customers, but
also, on the other side,bringing that back into our
engineering and product teams aswell.
I think that was superfundamental to improve the
overall maturity of the productand how we guide our partners to
go and implement it as well.
Mark Smith (08:31):
So as an internal team, as a success to my design
as internal Microsoft engineersand their experience on these
projects, and then out of thatgrew FastTrack.
Prior to cloud, we had on-premand we had a framework similar
called dynamics 365, surestepand did any artifacts or because
(08:54):
that used to be a massivelibrary of templates.
You know you'd have your fitgap analysis documentation, you
would have know your scopingdocuments, you'd have your
architectural documents, a wholerange of library of assets.
Back in the day Is this thenatural iteration of what that
was, an on-prem world kind oftooling.
(09:16):
And then we now in the fasttrack, with success by design
being the cloud equivalent.
Alok Singh (09:22):
I think it's interesting because when we
started off with this, it wasn'treally for us an evolution of
show step.
It was, I would say, not atheoretical or an academic
exercise, but really the thingsthat we were just seeing on the
ground and almost sharing witheach other that this is where we
can go and avoid these specificchallenges or how do we shape
(09:45):
the work that the implementationteam is doing.
So I wouldn't say that successby design is an evolution of
what we had from a ShareStepperspective, but also ShareStep
or the methodologies that ourpartners used.
That had evolved significantlyand I think every partner had a
different way of doing it, theirown kind of flavor of
methodology, and going andtrying to impose a new
(10:07):
methodology we didn't think wasthe right thing and wasn't even
necessary to drive the successthat we were looking for.
Mark Smith (10:13):
If we look at FastTrack now and we're what?
Nine, 10 years on, how manyprojects are potentially and I
know you might not have an exactfigure representing this data
set now, like, in other words,and the reason I asked last time
, I heard I don't know how longago this is about 30,000
projects have fed into the bodyof work that makes up Success by
(10:38):
Design and the Fast Trackprogram.
Is that kind of still arepresentative number, or is it
higher?
Alok Singh (10:45):
Is that kind of still a representative number or
is it higher?
Yeah, I think and I don't knowwhen we started kind of counting
on some of these programs wereformalized, but at least from
the time that I've been in theteam and we formally announced,
you know, success by Design, ourimplementation guides and
frameworks etc.
We have over 8,000 to 10,000projects for sure that have gone
live with FastTrack and haveadopted Success by Design.
(11:07):
That's the number that I'veseen.
Pedro Sacramento (11:10):
And those might be more.
Sorry, mark, just to say onething when we step of engagement
, it was one to many.
There was one FastTracksolution architect working with
many customers, but since thenwe've onboarded partners.
So I think that Al wasmentioning that we have now 120
partners and they are also usingor leveraging Success by Design
framework with their customers.
(11:30):
So if you just imagine thescale of it, right?
So now it's not one fast tracksolution architect working with
many customers, it's alsopartners working with all of
their customers, right, whichkind of grows those numbers by a
lot.
Mark Smith (11:42):
Yeah, yeah For sure.
You know there's been a statround and I can trace back.
There's an academic reportthat's been done on it and it's
only top of mind for me becauseI'm currently writing a book on
project failures and, well, howto make projects successful more
to the point.
But there's a stat around 70%of all software projects fail
because of not having a kind ofwell one.
(12:06):
User adoption is a big part ofit, but really not having a
framework around.
Have you noticed that?
You know, with the programbeing in place, that that number
has turned to much more successover time.
You know, back when I started mycareer in the space, there was
a undocumented thing known asMicrosoft Make it Right money
(12:31):
and that was where Microsoftdidn't want to suffer brand
reputational risk because apartner had basically skewed a
project right.
And you know I remember beingpulled on one project.
It was sold and you think thiswas 15 years ago.
It was sold for $800,000.
I was called in when it got to$1.8 million as to what has gone
(12:53):
wrong.
And when you looked at it itwas fundamental stuff right, no
project governance, no projectmanagement, no change management
.
It wasn't.
And, of course, what does acustomer do.
Oh, the tech is broken, right?
I remember being pulled into incanberra in australia by
microsoft to talk to what the Ithink it was the second largest
(13:14):
agency big dynamics,implementation of them going the
product's broken.
Took me a quick look to seethat the product wasn't broken.
People had engineered overengineered, done stuff that was
back then outside the sdk inbreach of it because they didn't
even know that sdk existed,type thing.
And yet they get called onthese big projects.
(13:36):
And so have you seen a turn ofthe tide to the projects that
have been under the coveringbeing much more successful as a
standard, like success by design, rather than the failures that
we've seen in software projectsin the past 100%.
Alok Singh (13:52):
I think what our data is showing is that when we
look at projects where FastTrackis engaged, we have early
engagement, and I think the wordearly is really key there.
Right, yeah, if we get engagedmaybe a month before the go live
, you know, success by design isnot going to make that
difference, right, yes, early on.
(14:15):
And when I say early on, it'sessentially when you have
understood the business problemthat you're trying to solve and
you've gone into you know, justcoming out of the discovery
phase, that this is how I'mgoing to go about this.
Right, that's the perfect timeto start using the Success by
Design framework.
Some of the reviews that we have, like the solution blueprint
review and engaging with thefast track architect if you have
one on your project rightsolution blueprint review and
(14:35):
engaging with the fast trackarchitect if you have one on
your project right and doingthat has shown that the adoption
is higher.
I think when we looked at thenumbers last and this was a few
years back it was 2.2x higheradoption we have seen on those
projects.
Anecdotally, if you just lookat the kind of challenges,
escalations, of firefightingthat we have to do, it's
significantly lower on theseprojects.
And the best part is what wehave seen here is that these
(14:57):
projects are the ones who aremore likely to benefit from the
future capabilities and thefeatures that are coming,
because the way this has beenbuilt, you're more aligned to
our product direction, right?
So I think that's been, I wouldsay, the key to our success and
the whole demand that we haveseen for this program and, mark,
I think that you described whySuccess by Design was created
(15:20):
Exactly what you were describing.
Pedro Sacramento (15:21):
I think that Alec was also laughing because
you were describing the issuesthat we encounter right,
sometimes just moving to thecloud and copying or mimicking
what was in on-premise andtrying to replicate it to online
, like all of those scenarios.
That's what we starteddocumenting, right, and
especially how to avoid them andhow to identify them in an
early stage.
(15:41):
That's why Alok is saying thatit's important for us to start
engaging in an early stage andnot just before the go-live.
Mark Smith (15:47):
Yeah, at what point did you go?
You know what, if we're goingto get the scale, we need to
bring partners and we need tokind of make sure they've been
trained in the way you know aswhat good looks like, get them
to understand it, get them touse the same nomenclature, talk
about it the same way and reallyimplement those success
(16:09):
principles.
How did that come about For me?
I was in Atlanta when JamesPhillips on stage announced the
first raft of outside MicrosoftFastTrack recognized solution
architects and that was veryprestigious recognition.
When was that?
What was the thinking arounddeciding?
Was it just purely scale?
Alok Singh (16:30):
I think it's a great question because if we look at
the whole kind of the FastTrackmodel and when we started
working with one customer at atime and when we're very early
stages of this program, right,we face a couple of challenges
and I'll be candid here thatwith some of the partners they
felt that microsoft is comingand auditing the work that
(16:50):
they're doing 100, like I wasthere.
Mark Smith (16:52):
I was that type of partner going what the freak?
I don't need you, I'm smarterthan you, yeah.
Alok Singh (16:57):
It felt like, you know, are we going to do things
that are going to make thepartner look bad in front of the
customer?
Right?
So that was one challenge.
The other thing was, when wesigned this SAW, we never
accounted for the time thatwe're going to spend with
FastTrack.
You're going to ask us to gothis solution blueprint review,
you're asking us to do thego-live readiness these things
(17:18):
are not accounted for.
So who's actually going to payfor this time, right?
Yes, yes.
So in super early stages ofFastTrack, we started seeing
these challenges and I think ittook us some time to actually
create that clarity with thepartner community that you know
this is not actually becoming anauditing.
We are saying that let'scollaborate really, really early
.
We set the direction right andthe product is evolving very
(17:43):
quickly.
There's a lot changing and Ithink we have been there around
when we moved to the one versionI don't know if you remember
that one version move, unifiedinterface move as well.
So there were a lot of shiftsthat were happening right, and
also partners and customers.
They were both struggling withthis constant change.
That's coming right.
Where do I go for direction?
Where do I go get help aroundthis?
(18:04):
And that's where I think thevalue of the fast track became
more and more clear.
Now they're not here to audit.
They are helping us betteralign to where Microsoft is
going, and this is a very fastmoving space, right.
That realization actually thenmade it super clear that
actually this is Microsoft'sinvestment into success rather
(18:26):
than auditing.
And it did feel like audit whenthings went wrong and we came
in really late, right, you'relike, but why didn't you do it
this way At that point?
It does feel like audit andhonestly, it makes everyone look
bad the partner Microsoft andin really late, right, you're
like, but why didn't you do itthis way At that point?
It does feel like audit and,honestly, it makes everyone look
bad the partner Microsoft andin many cases, you know the
approach that customer haspushed for as well.
Right, so early alignment isthe key here.
(18:46):
But to your point, tospecifically answer your
question we had to get throughthat barrier of FastTrack is not
an auditor, but actually yourcollaborator, right?
And once we came to that and weinvested in, some of our better
tooling and frameworks weremade publicly available for our
partners to consume.
I think that's when we feltthat we are ready for our
(19:07):
partners to go and do this ontheir own and we can support
them in the background.
So the level of directengagement from Microsoft wasn't
that necessary.
But I think understanding whatSuccess by Design, what
FastTrack is, and our investmentin tooling made significant
difference.
Pedro Sacramento (19:24):
And that second one investment.
I mean, we had to wait for themoment to come, because we
started, like Alec wasexplaining before, we started
this with a simple spreadsheet.
That's how it was born, right?
It was a spreadsheet, everyonechiming in and providing their
understanding and theirlearnings in an Excel
spreadsheet.
We've moved that to a propertool where everyone collaborates
(19:45):
as well to enrich the knowledgebase.
Now it's a portal that isavailable to partners and
partners can leverage.
So we had to grow in terms ofhow we documented, how we
collected all of our learningsand make them available.
At the same time, we weregrowing and showcasing the work
that we were doing, just also tohighlight that we are not
(20:05):
competing with anyone.
Right, we were here to help, soboth of them were happening at
the same time, and then theperfect moment happened, right.
Also, the launch of the guides.
I think that made everythingpossible.
Right, because we're alsosaying look, we've documented
everything and it's here or Imean not everything, but a big
amount of information and it'salso here for you to leverage.
(20:26):
Right?
All of that became availableand with that, we are also
showing that we are here to helpeveryone.
Alok Singh (20:31):
Yeah, yeah, the guides was a really good point
and it was actually JamesPhillips who nudged us.
I think he was meeting one ofthe customers in Australia.
They told well, fasttrack isgreat, but you know what we
don't want to always depend on?
You know, having FastTrack onevery single rollout or every
single phase, why don't youprovide us that guidance so we
all can, you know, consume itwhenever we want and make it
(20:53):
more self-serve?
It started off like animplementation guide book and I
think the idea was it came fromJames Phillips, me, pedro, I
think, the rest of the team itwas around eight or 10 of us who
were involved in putting thatbook together 800 odd pages yeah
, 700 or 800 pages PDF yeah.
Yeah, I think a lot of focus wason driving the right mindset
(21:15):
than going deep on the product.
But I think a lot of aspects ofthat book are actually updated.
It's in the docs now, so it'savailable to everyone.
Mark Smith (21:25):
Is it still a virtual document now that can be
updated?
I haven't looked at it for awhile.
Alok Singh (21:30):
I think it's moved to learn now Okay, yeah.
Pedro Sacramento (21:33):
It's just like any documentation that we
have.
It's breaking down by topics,and then you can navigate easily
.
Mark Smith (21:40):
How did you internally, so not the partner
side, but internally inMicrosoft?
Where's the differentiatorbetween you and the PowerCat
team and how you engage oncustomers?
Do you have a rules ofengagement, Because I know that
they stick to their importantcustomers?
From an architectural typereview We've seen in recent
(22:01):
times, is it well architected?
Alok Singh (22:04):
Yeah.
Mark Smith (22:04):
You know, also come out about two years ago, I think
it was in the BizApp space.
How is that all?
How do you handle who does whatand that you're not duplicating
effort and things like that?
Alok Singh (22:16):
that's a great question.
I think our focus areas eventhough, if you look at it from
org perspective, we are still,you know, part of the same
organization but our focus hasbeen more on the first party
dynamics, piece five apps andthat's always been the fast
track thing, while they focus onyou know platform in general,
including you knowID dev, etcetera.
(22:37):
So we would engage whereverthere's a first-party app and
they continue to focus on theplatform In terms of sharing our
learnings, success by Design,something that they have also
contributed on it.
From a power platformperspective, some of the
platform elements, the toolingthat we use internally to kind
of share these learnings or evento log things that engineering
(22:59):
needs to hear we all are joinedup on top of the V teams that we
have internally.
So we do have strongcollaboration, but I think our
engagement models and thecustomer coverage is really
different.
So they were focused on thekind of the top end of the
customers who are specificallytrying to roll out the platform
right and get that SID dev goingversus we were always on the
(23:21):
first party.
The good thing is that when itcomes to implementation portal
and how the tooling is evolvingin the near future on board the
Parkat team as well and they'llstart bringing their resources.
So from a partner perspective,it's going to be one place for
them to collaborate and trackall the engagements Perfect.
Mark Smith (23:41):
If we look at the FastTrack Recognize Solution
Architect and I've told this tomany people in my mind it's more
valuable than being an MVP andthe recognition of that and a
couple of reasons One like theMVP program, it's assessed each
year, so you can't do something15 years ago and still be
recognized for it today, which Ithink is critically important
in the speed of change, with twowave releases a year in the
(24:05):
space is there's all.
Everything's changed right,there's nothing permanent.
So I think the revalidation isgreat.
The other thing is you've gotto be on a project to get this
recognition.
You can't be book smart, youcan't be theoretical about it.
It is tied to actual work andand therefore my mind, I feel
(24:26):
it's the most prestigiousrecognition of the architectural
role.
That requires you to have notbeen an architect for just for
five minutes.
Right, you've got to have somehistory behind you and what you
do.
How do you make sure you don'tdilute that going forward?
You know that you don't dilutethe value, the recognition of
(24:49):
that, so that one customers,when they see somebody with a
fast track, recognizeddesignation, that they know this
is the cream of the crop, right?
These are people that havetenure.
They have been doing this for awhile.
I'm not dealing with the gradthat came out of university last
year, set the PL 600 exam andgot you know is like ah, I'm a
(25:15):
certified architect and you'relike, yeah, in theory you are.
You've never been in a projectthat started to go wrong, you've
never had to recover, you'venever made the mistakes, which
is a total different thing, andI think that this program takes
that into account and thereforeit is the cream of the crop.
How do you make sure it doesn'tget diluted in time?
Alok Singh (25:35):
Maybe what I'll do is I'll just talk a little bit
about the process and a littlebit about our thinking behind it
and how we go about mayberecognizing folks, because I
think we just met earlier todayon that as well.
So when we came up with theFast Work Recognized Solution
Architect, I think our idea wasagain going back to that
thinking of scale right, wecan't be there on every project
(25:59):
all the time.
We might do maybe one phase,but you know we just won't be
able to scale to covereverything all the time.
So what we started doing was,on specific projects, when we
see a partner architect who isworking with us and they're
bringing the right, I would say,success by design mindset.
I think that's almostfoundational to it.
What I mean by that mindsetessentially is they are not the
(26:24):
tech implementation team rightwhen I want you to go build me
that really blue, green, yellowbutton and they go and figure
out how shall I do that?
They're actually involved inunderstanding the business
problem and are part of thesolution team right Now.
They bring the technicalexpertise, but they know the
problem that they're trying tosolve.
I think that's the first thingthat we'll look at.
(26:45):
The next thing is the work thatthe architect is doing, and in
many cases it also involveschallenging the requirements
right, challenging the customerto effectively help them align
to how this problem can besolved with this product or with
the platform, because I thinkPedro mentioned this earlier and
(27:06):
we used to see a lot of thisbefore that you are now trying
to potentially replicate yourold system on a new platform,
with some tweaks here and there,but not holistically.
Looking at this platform as away to go solve a business
problem, right?
So, bringing that mindset andchallenging the customers to
(27:26):
make sure that they aremaximizing the value that they
can get from the product, that'sthe other thing that we look at
.
Other thing that we look at.
To me, the first go live whenthe project actually goes live
and many a times you know that'slike okay, that's a successful
go live that's really the start.
The true success is are youactually able to deliver
something that you can iterateon really quickly, right?
(27:48):
That's key.
So, which means you know you'redoing all the foundation
elements of ALM right.
Are you actually able to go andmake releases into production
every two weeks?
Do you have that set up?
So, are you really setting upthe customer for long-term
success and to be able toiterate, adopt new capabilities,
because that value realizationis going to rely on an ability
(28:12):
to iterate and that's anotherfactor that we look at.
So setting up the customer forlong-term success, I would say
so those three things kind ofdrive the success by design
mindset.
So that's primary.
And with the partner architects, where we see that, I think we
want to recognize them that evenif we are not there on this
project, they can go drive thissuccess right.
(28:33):
I think that was really thefundamental idea behind the
FDRSA.
Pedro Sacramento (28:37):
Nice, all right, and, if I can add, so I
think what Alec was saying isthat we look at different things
.
When we look at fast track,recognized architects, so
basically it's how they engagein projects and especially if or
when they go live, and if theygo live successfully, the
adoption of those projects, whatinnovation that is being
(28:58):
implemented.
We look at all of those right,so we kind of have a sense,
working with them day by day,how that project is going.
So we can do that analysis andmost of the times we work with
someone that not only in oneproject, in several projects,
right, because they move, likethe architects, especially the
architects, they move fromdifferent projects at the same
time.
So that's one of the areaswhere we work closer with them.
(29:21):
We can recognize their workright.
In terms of MVPs and I wasbriefly on the community growth
team a while back, so I wasdoing the MVP renewal process,
validation, let's call it likethat where we need to look at
what are the contributions forthat year, right, and I think
that we look at how the MVPs arecontributing to the community
(29:43):
and that can be by differentways, like events.
Speaking at events can be bycreating posts in blogs,
answering forum questions.
So it's all of thosecontributions.
It's also valuable.
I'm not saying that one is morevaluable than the other one,
it's not.
It's just a different way ofcontributing to the community,
so that's how we distinguishthem.
(30:03):
I'm not.
It's just a different way ofcontributing to the community,
so that's how we distinguishthem, right?
I'm not sure if there are plansto merge them eventually.
I don't know, and I know thatit's a sensitive topic.
I'm not even sure if that makessense.
I'm not saying it does.
I'm just saying that there aretwo different types of
recognitions that we give topeople.
One is how they contribute tothe community and the other one
(30:23):
is how they contribute toprojects and to implementations.
Mark Smith (30:24):
And to go-lives.
Yes, as I said, pre-call, I'dbe strongly opposed to them
merging together because I thinkthat the technical prowess that
comes with FastTrack RecognizeArchitect is an important
differentiator.
The other piece of advice notpiece of advice, but something
to consider that the little rubthat I've had with the program,
(30:45):
probably that's been identifiedin the last three years.
About a year ago I left IBM.
I was working for IBM inAustralia and we would work with
enterprise customers and thetrend that I noticed in the
market is that the big customersare relying less on partners.
Customers are relying less onpartners and the reason is the
global stage has changed.
(31:05):
Right Is that now?
If I'm a big, you know, 20 yearsago IT was in a lot of
organizations a separate areaand we don't have the expertise.
So we're bringing partners.
A maturity has happenedglobally.
Most people, if you're in acorporate environment, have a
level of IT skills that the sameperson in your role wouldn't
have had 20 years ago.
(31:26):
It's just a given right.
No one goes oh, I need to gofor Excel training.
Everyone uses it fromuniversity on, and so what?
I've noticed in these bigpartners that they are like hey,
why don't we just go out andset up our own internal practice
.
To run our projects We'll gohire the MVPs, the Fast Track
Recognized Architects, from apartner or whatever.
(31:48):
But of course the minute thatFast Track Recognized individual
leaves partner land, theprogram no longer applies.
And so I have seen in largecustomers in Australia,
architects that have beenformerly in partner land.
They go and become a dedicatedarchitect.
They're across the one projectI'm thinking of 44,000 seats,
(32:09):
licensed seats inside theorganization, so not small but
they can't get recognized as afast track recognized architect
even though they're applyingsuccess by design, but there's
that little rub that they're notin partner land.
They're applying success bydesign, but there's that little
rub that they're not in partnerland.
And I think that in recognitionof the changing landscape, like
to those individuals, thiswould be recognition back into
(32:32):
the companies that they'reworking for now, but also part
of their career progression,which is not available because
they don't work in partner land.
And I found it interesting whenwe talked just earlier that you
talked about 120 partners.
You've just reached that target.
So is it?
Do you see it more as aindividual contribution within a
partner or is it really for you?
(32:52):
Your framework requires apartner to own the designation
of their fast track recognizedarchitects internally.
Alok Singh (33:00):
Yeah, I think it's a very interesting point that you
mentioned.
I think we can maybe talk aboutthis whole trend of you know
in-house teams and you knowwhat's the perspective on that.
But when we fundamentallystarted with the FastTrack
Recognize solution architect,this came from our partner
success team.
So the team that was aligned topartner success, it's they who
(33:23):
essentially started off thisprogram and they partnered with
FastTrack to say that.
You know, we want to get thesignal from you on who are these
recognized within the, who arethe architects within the
partner community that we shouldrecognize for their good work,
right?
So the program is fundamentallyaligned to our partner success
program.
I get the same question becausewe run a lot of partner
(33:45):
bootcamps and stuff and I workwith customer architects as well
and they would come and saythat you know why can't I attend
that bootcamp, right?
Yes yes, I appreciate it.
I think there's something thatwe need to think about how do we
do that, you know, for thearchitects involved?
That's a good feedback.
I don't think I have a greatanswer right now.
Mark Smith (34:03):
No, as in I do, as in the minute I finished
answering the question, it cameto me it's funding lines, right,
the fact that it's funded viathe partner program makes it
very clear why it is a partnerthing.
Like, as I say, the minute Ifinished asking I realized, yes,
it's a funding line reason andthat's why it is.
It's a funding line reason andthat's why it is.
One little other stat I'llthrow in the co-founder of
(34:23):
LinkedIn, reid Hoffman, hasrecently said that by 2035, 50%
of the US workforce will becontractors, so they won't be
working, and I feel that's goingto apply to IT folks more than
ever.
Another trend that I've noticedin the last three to five years
, since the pandemic, really isthis massive move of very senior
(34:46):
skilled staff moving out ofpartner land and becoming
independent contractors, and sothey're going from project to
project and being verysuccessful and building a
reputation, hence why theygenerally have a backlog of
opportunities to go to, and Ijust wonder that, once again,
(35:07):
you know, an evolution may be instore.
Any final words?
Alok Singh (35:13):
I think, first of all, this has been a great
conversation and I'd love tomaybe keep talking about a lot
of these topics, but I thinkit's really our key focus now
and you know, maybe I want tohighlight this is that
everything that we do from asuccess by design perspective
you know, working with ourcustomers, enabling our partners
to do this we want todemocratize this guidance, this
(35:36):
content, so it's available outthere.
Even if you're not a partner, ifyou're just, you're just an
individual contractor or aconsultant working on a customer
project, you can go and use theself-serve capabilities of the
portal.
Yes, which means, at least fromour perspective, there's
nothing that's holding backanyone from benefiting from
(35:57):
Success by Design, from thecontent that we have and the
overall framework.
So we want to be inclusive.
Whether you're working with acustomer partner or an
individual contractor, we don'ttake away access to the tooling
and the content.
So that's there for you and themore you can adopt this on your
projects.
We have driven some greatsuccess and there's no reason
why you cannot use this anddrive success on your projects.
Pedro Sacramento (36:20):
I can give a couple of examples.
I'm not on the FastTrack teamanymore, so Al has more
information about the latest andgreatest about success by
design and how FastTrack isworking now, but I can tell that
while we were writing theimplementation guide, most of
the information that was there Imean I would love to get it on
my hands before I even work withDynamics, because it's also
(36:41):
applicable.
It's not something specific toDynamics, so there's a lot of
knowledge there that can beapplicable to other products,
other technologies as well.
And the second thing is I'vemoved out of the FastTrack team
but even today I still leveragesuccess by design principles.
So my current team I'veimplemented a checklist, for
example.
That's something that comeswith success by design and even
(37:03):
with the implementation guidesat the end of each chapter we
create a checklist right, so Iuse that often.
I go back to that wheresomething is not clear, where I
think that we need to have someguidance on what is the goal,
what is the outcome.
I use it often.
So there are a lot ofadvantages of leveraging not
only dynamics with PowerPlatform, but also with other
(37:26):
products as well.
Mark Smith (37:26):
Yeah, I like the checklist idea.
There's a book called theChecklist Manifesto and a lot of
research was done in medicalinstitutions and constructing
large buildings and architectureand stuff and they found that
consistent success were thosethat implemented checklists.
So it's that mindset right.
It's those fundamentals.
Alok Singh (37:45):
It was James Phillips who insisted that we
have a checklist at the end ofevery chapter.
Mark Smith (37:49):
Yeah, interesting, interesting, great guy, great
guy.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I've really enjoyed this.
I found it an enlighteningdiscussion.
I really hope a lot of peopleget value and look up.
We'll put in the show notesresources to the portal that
were discussed for the variousassets.
So go learn, find out more andconsider implementing a mindset
(38:12):
of success in your projects.
Great Chad, thanks, mark.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I'm your host, mark Smith,otherwise known as the NZ365 guy
.
Is there a guest you would liketo see on the show from
Microsoft?
Please message me on LinkedInand I'll see what I can do.
Final question for you how willyou create with Copilot today,
(38:32):
ka kite.
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