Developing an enterprise Power Platform strategy
With the rise of Microsoft’s Power Platform and the cementing of its status as a year-on-year market leader for Low-Code Application Platforms from both Gartner and Forrester, figuring out how to begin an enterprise’s journey with the Platform can be one of the most challenging aspects.
Imagine if you’re asked, “What will be our strategy for the Power Platform in our organisation?”
As Kwame Anthony Appiah, the philosopher and cultural theorist said in a BBC Reith Lecture Series on Identity, “Good question… which means hard answer.”
The concept of identity, an organisation’s culture, values, and vision, plays a key role in shaping any strategy.
What is a technology strategy?
There are various definitions and most coalesce around “a strategy outlines how the technology will support the wider business goals and objectives”. That leaves the possibility that after analysis you discover that the technology doesn’t — in that case, you should consider stopping and question whether the Power Platform is the solution. But let’s assume that it does. The strategy should be sufficiently high level in its signposting of actions and milestones to give a clear direction, whilst allowing the implementation details to be decided upon and adjusted later.
The notion of being asked “what is the Power Platform strategy” also assumes either the technology stack has been previously selected or is already available in the enterprise, e.g., as part of the Microsoft 365 E5 license, but perhaps is not widely used.
The beginning (and the end?)
Starting with a blank slate can be the hardest part, especially if you’re new to enterprise architecture and have to produce a strategy report and presentation as your output. Reverse planning or working backwards can be a useful technique to help plan out the work needed to produce the output.
- Identify the vision. What is the Power Platform doing for the organisation? Perhaps the vision is for a few years’ time but it needs to be flexible to adapt to future changes. Think Covid.
- Identify the intermediate steps. Imagine the vision state has been achieved, what are the stepping stones that got the organisation to that point?
- Identify the baseline. What is the start point for those intermediate steps (i.e. what does the organisation look like today)? What other information was used in the baseline to help formulate those steps?
These three areas translate nicely into forming the structure (headings and sub-headings) of your strategy report from which you can plan the actions and activities needed to create the strategy. In no particular order, example headings could include Baseline Architecture; Organisational Overview; Key Findings; Roadmap; Governance Recommendations; Data Recommendations; Adoption; Strategy Vision; and so on.
The Vision
Given the question at the start of this post, there might not be a vision for the Power Platform and part of the work will be defining one. Collaborate with your stakeholders to form an evocative picture of the future that blends the wider business goals with the capabilities of the Platform. For example, it might be the empowerment of every user to quickly and easily build solutions to meet their teams’ goals.
Understanding your organisation
Taking a snapshot of the current state helps to make clear any relevant areas that will have an impact on the Power Platform, how it’s used, and equally important it will also highlight areas that are missing. Pulling together the baseline information into one place also helps remove potential assumptions and ambiguities and can also generate surprising results that were not previously known. Areas to document should include:
- Business and IT goals and drivers. The Power Platform strategy should underpin the wider business/IT vision and any strategy recommendations should support those goals.
- Values and principles. What values and principles have been used to inform your decisions and strategic direction? This can include the cultural identity of the organisation.
- Business units and functions. Provide a high-level overview of the organisational structure and elements that are relevant including key functions such as security, operations, development units (centralised and local), governance structures, etc.
- Technical and architectural assets. The current state of licenses, user devices, primary technology stacks, development processes, technical catalogues, best practices, and standards are all useful data points. If the Power Platform is already in place, detail the headline information (current number of Power Apps, Power BI reports, Data Loss Prevention policy existence, etc.)
- Policies and existing governance processes. Detail any relevant accessibility, operational, architectural, data and security procedures. For example, privacy impact assessments could be mandatory for all IT projects.
- Findings from stakeholder interviews. Probably one of the most important areas is identifying a list of key stakeholders across various parts of the business and disciplines and gathering different viewpoints, challenges, and opportunities to feed into the strategy. Be prepared to listen with empathy, be curious, and be diplomatic
Develop recommendations and roadmap
The next stage is to collaborate with key stakeholders and apply your knowledge and experience of the Power Platform (and of the wider citizen development and low-code/no-code concepts) to develop a set of actions and recommendations to move towards the vision. Some of the main building blocks are:
- Microsoft resources. There is a wealth of information provided by Microsoft covering administration and deployment whitepapers, environment strategies, governance recommendations, and the Power Platform CoE toolkit.
- Case studies and past experiences. Bringing experiences from previous businesses, perhaps in the same sector or with a similar corporate identity, can help provide an initial view of recommendations but they still need to be tailored to meet the specific needs of your current organisation.
- Market research. Leveraging papers which span topics of citizen development, low-code application platforms, etc. from market analysts is a useful way to shape and validate recommendations and introduce novel lines of thinking. For example, the Gartner’s “The Future of Apps Must Include Citizen Development” paper
- Gap analysis. Comparing the current state and vision should generate a broad set of recommendations, activities, and actions. For example, perhaps the organisation wants to move to a landscape of fully accessible apps but they don’t have a dedicated assistive technology team. You might recommend a new team, formalised testing processes, governance checks, and the development of accessible and reusable Power App components and templates.
- Revisiting the vision. Using the above information and research, along with the wider business and IT goals, the initial view of the vision might need adjusting.
- Prioritisation and roadmap. At this point, there should be enough clarity to define a list of immediate and pressing activities and initiatives (e.g. the need to apply a design review process for all Power Apps). Beyond the immediate horizon, there’s an element of fuzziness for the roadmap — don’t worry too much about precision (things will change).
A transformation map is a useful tool to depict this — placing milestones and activities into categories, e.g. Business/Organisation, Architecture, Governance, etc., helps to communicate the journey.
Bring the strategy to life
Whilst a lengthy document is useful for detailing the finer points and nuances of the strategy, it is far from the best way of communicating it to your audience. Developing the strategy into a compelling and snappy story can help visualise the future model for the Power Platform and how it will be reached.
- Condense the strategy to a short presentation (around 10 slides) — make sure the presentation is as accessible as possible (using any available accessibility tools/checkers).
- Choose a perspective that will land best with your audience. For example, perhaps the Power Platform is addressing long-term shadow-IT issues, and evoking the story of the strategy from a governance-led viewpoint could resonate more.
- Call out key findings, evidence, risks, opportunities, and recommendations from the strategy. For example, showing the current usage of 1000s of Power Apps, with no Data Loss Prevention policy or other governance in place, could be a powerful call-to-action.
- Create a drawing of the strategy-on-a-page to convey the essence of the strategy. This could be anything from a few simple shapes to a rich infographic.
- Connect with your audience. Being genuine and enthused whilst presenting can help sell the story of the strategy.
Review, revise, repeat
Finally, having the draft of the strategy reviewed and revised is a standard part of any document process before its publication, however, a technical strategy should be a living document that is revisited over time and should not be left to stagnate once published. For a technology like the Power Platform, which is rapidly changing and growing, this is even more important.
Adaption is key and baking it into the overall strategy process and its implementation, through a regular feedback loop, helps ensure the strategy can respond to business, technology, regulatory, and other external changes… and, with any luck, your organisation should have a successful journey with the Power Platform.
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