Ask good questions
Consultants often rely on partial information when they build a Dynamics 365 solution because the customer only answered what they were asked. Asking good questions is essential to helping ensure that you get the full picture and that the solution will be more complete.
Customers don't want to give bad or incomplete information. Rather, you could have encountered several challenges when trying to get information from them, such as:
A customer doesn't have time to give you detailed answers.
You only get simple answers.
You have limited or no access to the actual customer.
The requirements or specification that you've received are clearly incomplete when they should have been complete.
You're receiving conflicting information.
You're only being told about the happy path.
Everyone is new and doesn't know how processes work.
Access to the customer
Depending on your role on the project team and how your team interacts with the customer, you might or might not have direct access to the customer. Regardless, you still need adequate information to complete your assigned work. Doing uninformed work because you can't get answers to your questions is never acceptable. If you can't get direct access, prepare your questions for someone who does have access and can advocate for your need to get answers. Asking good questions and helping make positive refinements to the solution is a good way to demonstrate that more direct access to the customer would be appropriate.
Ask open-ended questions
If you find that you're getting short answers to your questions, then you're likely not asking open-ended questions. People who are in a hurry or aren't interested in conversing will commonly keep their answers short and won't elaborate on details that might be helpful. Ideally, leading with a better question could help. For example, perhaps you asked, "Are support requests escalated when they're past due?" An easy answer to that question is "Yes." A better option would be to ask, "Could you help me understand scenarios where support requests are escalated?" This question practically requires a more detailed answer, and it helps lead to a more complete understanding.
If you do receive a short answer, you can always add a follow-up question to recover. For example, you could ask, "What happens when support requests are escalated?" Occasionally, yes and no answers are helpful. However, they're typically only meant to guide your discovery or to confirm understanding. A good use of close-ended questions is to restate your understanding and ask for confirmation, for example, "Am I correct in understanding that cases are escalated when they're past due or on request?"
Choose how to ask a question
You can use various approaches when asking questions to discover information. The approach can affect the quality and usefulness of the answer that you get. The following examples explain some approaches and the benefits of each:
Verbal interaction - This approach is beneficial because it allows for interactive questions and answers. When you engage in this type of interaction through an online meeting, you can use the recording option, which allows you to focus on listening rather than on the task of taking notes. Additionally, this approach enables review as needed.
Demonstration - Ask the user to show how they complete a process in the current system. This approach can be invaluable because, as the user demonstrates the process, you might notice something that they've forgotten to tell you.
Email - Using an email approach allows the customer to respond at their own convenience. However, this approach can also cause procrastination and require follow-up to encourage a response. Emails can also offer a good trail of how decisions were made if questions are asked later.
Ask for an example - This approach works well for getting insight into current reports or other outputs that you have questions about.
Use existing requirements
Consider a scenario where you're implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service. You've requested time from the customer so that you can ask them questions. However, their response is to send you their current system documentation, stating that it should tell you everything that you need to know. While that documentation might be useful, it's unlikely to answer all your questions.
Generally, companies don't want to replicate a legacy system into a modern Dynamics 365 app deployment. By asking probing questions beyond the scope of their existing system, you can learn the details that are necessary for setting up Dynamics 365 rather than replicating their old system.
Conflicting information
When asking questions to discover the customers' processes, you should be prepared to receive conflicting information. The following reasons are some of the most common:
Different users have developed their own way of using the old system, and in many cases, complete the same process by using different methods.
Managers might not fully understand how their staff uses the system because they don't perform the work daily.
Users might have explained the process that they use in different levels of detail, leaving out key steps.
You might not have understood the explanation.
Regardless of the reason, when you detect a conflict in your discovery, you'll need to ask clarifying questions to resolve what's done or needs to be done. Occasionally, it's necessary to expand your discovery to more users so that you can gain more perspective. Talking to a manager can help with the perspective on what they think should be done or needs to be done.
Nothing ever goes wrong
If all answers to your questions indicate that everything is working well, then you're probably not getting the full story. Make sure that you expand your questions to ask about exceptions and problems that might arise and how they're handled currently. You'll want to address these exceptions early in your new process development to avoid discovering them when testing the deployment of the new Dynamics 365 app.
Everyone is new
The older the legacy system that you're replacing, the more likely that much of the domain knowledge of how it works has moved on to other companies. When you conduct your discovery, if the only answer that you receive is, "I'm new to the company and I only know my small part," then look for resources that can help fill in the missing details. The following suggestions can help you find answers:
Look for old system documentation or training materials.
Ask users if their predecessor provided documentation that explains how to do the process that they're taking over.
Drill down to the details
When asking questions, imagine that you're peeling back the layers of an onion, where each question exposes another layer and more details. Use those details to compose your next question. If the answer that you receive doesn't expose another layer of detail, then ask the question a different way until it does. By asking probing questions to get to the core of the situation, you'll fully understand all aspects.
Expand scope or expectations
As you ask questions, keep in mind the scope of the project that you're working on. Typically, most projects don't have unlimited time and budget and have a scope that the customer must stay within to be successful. You might encounter issues if you ask users questions suggesting that the new system might do something well beyond the scope of the effort. For example, you might ask a user, "Would it help if we could automate the data entry across the five current apps that you use?" Knowing that your scope doesn't include this approach would lead the user to having a misplaced expectation.
Similarly, in scenarios where you're responding to a user's suggested solution that you know is beyond the current scope, it can be easier to state, "We'll see what we can do." Be sensitive that your goal is discovery to complete your current assigned scope, and not in expanding. However, if you're good at working with customers, you might participate in solution envisioning where the focus is to explore possibilities. Solution envisioning is commonly part of a sales process that proceeds a specific scoped project. To implement the vision, one or more scoped projects would take on the evolution toward the envisioned state.
No single, correct way exists for asking customers questions. While practicing on your projects, you'll evolve your own techniques. The key is to ensure that you continue to ask questions until you're satisfied that you have adequate information to support a successful deployment of the Dynamics 365 app.