Change Management and the Change Curve for Dynamics 365 CRM Implementation

Change will come to your organization anytime you implement a new Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM project or enhancement. That change isn’t a one-time experience but it’s an ongoing process of user adoption, adjustments, productivity, and engagement.

Anytime there is a project or enhancement change — the end goal is to empower users to adopt the new technologies. You need to align the right resources and drive improved values and strategies within your organization.

If you are part of that team leading a CRM deployment or enhancement you need to understand the typical stages that many organizations go through when adopting change. This article will help you gauge your efforts and manage the progress as you adapt to challenges that arise.

Let’s look at Change Management and deploying (as an example for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement). We will go over the typical CRM project lifecycle (see image below) which is also known as the Change Curve.

• The Project Kick-off: This is where you have invited stakeholders, the end-users, and management to help kick off the project. Expectations are all over the place here. There is excitement, fear, confidence, and a level of uncertainty. On the standard Change Curve, you need to set a base level of expectations, performance, and motivation.
• The Requirements: Go ahead and capture all of your wish list items here. Make sure you are being heard by your Microsoft Partner and Project teams. Keep the excitement level high!
• The Development: Your Microsoft Partner and Project team are busy building the system requirements and sticking to the approved project plan. As the development begins and moves forward it is natural to wonder if all the requirements were gathered correctly. Move forward with confidence and together with your Partner and make smart changes. Don’t worry about doing everything at once. Work in sprints and phases based on your Partner recommendations.
• Testing and UAT: When the point comes to User-Acceptance Testing (UAT) you are going to run into failures. You will be running test scripts and seeing items that are passing and others that are failing. This is common and part of the process. This Change Curve reaches its lowest point in performance around this point and needs to be used as motivation for helping your users to succeed.
• The Training: As users go through training, they will increase their confidence with the CRM system—learning new areas and seeing new features. If you have followed some basic User Adoption tips, you have successfully used the technology of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement to create a system that will aid users in their daily job. This will build confidence and will allow performance to move in the right direction. Note that during this process you are looping back around to the starting point in the Change Curve of performance & motivation.
• Your Go Live & Beyond: You’ve returned to your starting point on the change curve and surpassed it! Move forward with confidence. Learn from your mistakes and be committed to creating a culture of change at your organization.

The most important point — Change is a PROCESS. It is not a destination. There will always be a continuous need to improve technologies, strategies, and user adoption. While the graphic above represents one cycle, be prepared for the curve to adapt as your team continues to use and enhance your Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM system.

In future articles, we will dive deeper into other topics including being ready for change, designating a change management team, and how to do ongoing change management training.

JourneyTEAM, (MS Gold Partner and MSUS Partner of the Year) has been down this path a number of times and has a methodology that helps you address the different stages of change management. We can help you at any stage of the user adoption and change management experience. Contact us for more information – https://www.journeyteam.com/adoption

Article by: Dave Bollard – Head of Marketing | 801-436-6636

JourneyTEAM is an award-winning consulting firm with proven technology and measurable results. They take Microsoft products; Dynamics 365, SharePoint intranet, Office 365, Azure, CRM, GP, NAV, SL, AX, and modify them to work for you. The team has expert level, Microsoft Gold certified consultants that dive deep into the dynamics of your organization and solve complex issues. They have solutions for sales, marketing, productivity, collaboration, analytics, accounting, security and more. www.journeyteam.com