Exploring Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Methodology – Sure Step

Veteran ERP consultants understand how to execute an implementation project. They can call on their years of experience to design a new project that will have a good chance at success. When the next generation of consultants joins the team, these practices will be passed along, even if there is no process in place to manage the knowledge transfer. Many implementation consultants can probably recall their own experience learning as the way it was always done in their previous jobs.

Consulting companies can apply their own implementation methodology based on previous projects, and there is no problem with this as long as the company achieves its objectives and satisfies its customers. The company should also be committed to continuously improving its own methodology and building on it by experience.

However, there is a range of problems with an implementation methodology based on transferring the senior consultant's knowledge and experience to the next class of junior consultants. Such informal or small-scale approaches will lead to variances in implementation approach between different consultants, even in the same company, and it can create differences from one project to another, even for the same consultant. To add to the risk, a consulting firm that depends on consultants to provide an implementation methodology is exposed to a loss creditability with their customers if the consultant is changed and the new consultant will follow his own approach in the implementation methodology, which is different from his colleague.

Alternatively, there is an implementation methodology built up by an experienced organization where information and data have been gathered from a range of experienced implementers, based on the best practices from a broad range of previous projects and experiences, across a range of business domains and client types. That organization is, of course, Microsoft, and the methodology is Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step.

Microsoft brought Sure Step to the Microsoft Dynamics market in 2007 and they have recently launched its online version. The common question from implementers is: why do we need a standard implementation methodology for ERP when we have our own?

At a high level, there are common phases of an ERP implementation project, but the depth and complexity of each phase depends on the nature of the project itself. The procedure to execute the project will depend on the consulting firm and its approach in project execution, as well was its style in managing customers. The phases are diagnostic, analysis, design, development, deployment, and operation. The key characteristics of the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step methodology are as follows: