FastTrack for Dynamics 365 is an onboarding program run by the product engineering team that offers best practices, tools, resources, and expert advice whereas both customer and implementation team will gain valuable insights with solution implementation, onboarding, and continued education.
Essentially, the service aims to smoothen project implementation by giving guidance on best practices and answering your how-to-do questions from Microsoft engineering resources, committed to making your experience with Dynamics 365 a success.
At this point, we are going to delve in and cover the FastTrack engagement model and project governance so you know how to collaborate with the FastTrack team throughout the engagement.
FastTrack Engagement Model
There is a difference in models depending on how much the customer has spent on Dynamics 365 license. Thus, customers who purchase $300,000 or more in D365 license qualify for the Microsoft FastTrack program. It is a three-way collaboration between the FastTrack solution architect, the customer implementation team, and the partner implementation team.
The FastTrack solution architect is the designated architect assigned to work throughout the project. He or she will conduct the success by designing workshops, preparing the findings and recommendations to share with the implementation team and the customer. Also, he or she will be the point of contact when any architecture issues arise and require a discussion.
The FastTrack architect will also be the conduit to the product group when the discussion is needed with the product program manager on the feature feedback or if the implementation team needs to understand the future roadmap of a specific feature that helps with the solution.
The second model is for the customers who purchase between $100,000 and $300,000 in Dynamics 365 license.
It is also a three-way collaboration, but with a tiny difference. The success part is conducted by the implementation team through designing and managing workshops. The FastTrack program manager, who works for the FastTrack solution architect, will be working with the implementation team to execute workshops with the customer, providing guidance and support in preparing findings and recommendations for the customer.
When the implementation team presents the workshop results to the customer, the FastTrack solution architect will join the event acknowledging the findings and recommendations to put together in front of the customer. In this case, the customer will know that Microsoft is also behind these findings and recommendations which strengthen trust and confidence in the project.
As the final piece, the FastTrack team will answer any questions the customer might have throughout the entire meeting. Anytime an escalation happens, FastTrack solution architect can engage directly to mitigate them together with both the implementation team and the customer.
Again, FastTrack is part of the product group similar to the Microsoft Web FastTrack program. The FastTrack solution architect is the bridge to the program managers who are actually building the product. Hence, the implementation team can directly provide feedback as well as understand what’s going to be the road map for products in the coming releases.
FastTrack: Collaboration
Collaboration with the FastTrack team happens through discussion and documentation, whereas it brings all relevant architecture topics during workshops and reviews. The team also shares experiences and the best practices on other implementations it has done, which is quite valuable since such teams usually deal with many complex global engagements.
After the discussion, the FastTrack team documents the findings and provides recommendations to both the implementation team and the customer. Having precise documentation helps with collaboration to better understand the solution and the implementation approach, providing clarity to the different stakeholders and team members across the project.
Success by design is a framework for all of the sides to proactively identify risks and issues, calling risks proactively and early on. The goal is not to point out what has been done wrong but to surface any of the risks that teams have learned together and provide enough time to address those risks before actual Go-Live.
Working with FastTrack
Success by design is not a methodology – it is the framework and the approach which performs well once all methodologies have been used. Since implementation teams already do workshops with customers covering some of the topics during meetings, FastTrack aims to provide the framework for organizing the workshop with the implementation team and the customer, ensuring efficiency.
If a project qualifies for the FastTrack service, the nomination shall be submitted to provide early visibility and engagement on the project for the FastTrack service. Once the customer is live, the FastTrack team will disengage. This is not bound to a specific duration as some projects could last for a few months and some projects could last for more than a year or two.