You know what any airplane pilot isn´t up for? Dealing with stalling, right?! Well, that´s nothing different compared to software product owners that would love to see their product/project flourish and grow. And same as compared to an airplane operation there´s a secret or hidden force which prevents from stalling. A force, that kept in the right balance, will keep your airplane/project on track and safely fly from A to B and following routes.
Today I´d love to talk about this secret or hidden force that it takes for your Power Platform projects to flourish and keep growing in a balanced way. May I introduce you to the Power Trinity.

I´ve recently seen Microsoft MVPs like Mark Smith starting discussions on Center of Excellence being dead and instead raising the momentum of a Center of Enablement. In addition to that, Steve Mordue asking to agree or to disagree with a mountain of shitty little apps being created by „Citizen Development“. You might have recognized those posts as well, if not it might be a good idea of studying them first, before continue reading here.
With the majority of customers I´ve been in talks and them being on their journey of successfully adopting Power Platform and low code tools as part of their developer community toolchain, all of those initiatives remain dependent on the Power Trinity. The secret force that keeps Power Platform projects alive and flourish if balanced. But for some customers this hidden force is an unrecognized one when taking their seats as the airplane pilot. They think of a quick round with a flight simulator (which you could compare to getting to know what others kept doing or studying best-practices and copying them) would preventing them from stalling and all of a sudden they are into this situation.
You could also think of a pilot that has been operating an A330 for many years, thinking of the knowledge of this would enable to operate an A380 easily. That´s almost like IT operating the Power Platform like they did for many years with Microsoft 365 and consider Governance to working the same and more Governance will help to operate the A380 within minutes.

Well, we all know change isn´t an easy thing and neither something that could be easily trained for in a simulator. Learned things also cannot be taken as for granted and remaining the same. Is it any different, when using low code tools for driving Digital Transformation? It takes people, culture and a future-oriented mindset which sometimes feels risky, uncomfortable or new. When you´re about to start your journey or you´re in the situation of „stalling“, you should ask yourself if you´ve prepared your flight crew on that airplane the right way – in terms of using the hidden forces that holds your plane successfully in the air. As with flying an airplane – the setup is key to success. But let me deep dive a little bit on that.

Did you know that same as with an airplane it takes a successful crew to operate it? Power Platform adoption is a multitude of jobs, roles, people and „forces“ coming together for success. And the more you´re prepared as a crew, the more it flourish. Take for instance as a best practices that customers realizing value, have implemented a house that contains at least 6 rooms. One, where you would find a Governance Lead in, another one, with an Application Lead and a third one with a Skilling Lead. All of them working on parts of the successful flight plan, regularly meeting and of course prior to the next flight align on current plan.
In another room you might find Adoption Leads or Champions which you could think of weren´t born as this. They kept growing and raising and of course started to become Mentors for others. If you haven´t yet thought about this in your plan, think of it like you missed the ground crew for maintaining your airplane. While in the air, you may not need them. But when on ground, you can´t live without them to get ready for your next endeavor.
The 5th room is basically your pre-flight deck, where everything regularly will get reviewed, key learnings taking out of your last trip and moved forward as key performance indicators for your next trip – the Exec Steering Group. And last, but not least, in the 6th room there´s the flight control tower. Without the operator in here, there´s no save starting or grounding. You may operate on auto-pilot for some landings, but the supervisor will still be in the background. And the same remains true for your Power Platform journey doesn´t have an Exec Sponsorship.

The secret or hidden force, therefore can be planned for with a simple framework that many Azure customers already might be familiar with. Cause the steps also can be found in the Cloud Adoption Framework. If you thought you can skip any one of these or fast forward by following only what others did, you´re possibly in a situation of seeing a „stalling effect“ any time soon. You can still prevent running into it, by adjusting your plan and re-initiate preparing your people.
The Power Trinity will help you ensuring to prevent for stalling. Only a balanced Power Trinity will ensure your Digital Transformation to flourish. If forces are out of balance you´ll recognize a „stalling effect“ and you should recognize the signals carefully, like a good pilot that – even on auto pilot – keeps tracking of what´s happening during the flight.
Let me know your thoughts, and if you wish to read more about the Power Trinity in future. Until then,…