Better Questions, Better Business Central, and the Community That Helps Us Get There

If there is one thing I have learned after more than two decades in the Microsoft Dynamics world, it is this: The most successful ERP journeys don’t necessarily start with the best answers; they start with better questions.

My own journey with Microsoft Dynamics NAV started in the early 2000s as an end user. Like so many of us, I learned NAV by living in it every day. I learned by solving problems, trying things, breaking a few things, figuring out what worked, and finding workarounds when it didn’t. I knew our business, I knew our processes, and, over time, I became pretty darn good at figuring out how NAV could help us get the job done.

Then, around 2013–2014, I discovered something that completely changed my journey: I found the Microsoft Dynamics community.

Suddenly, my classroom became a whole lot bigger.

I discovered Microsoft employees, MVPs, partners, consultants, developers, other end users, and people who were willing to sit in a room and openly talk about what they knew. I found people who would answer questions, challenge assumptions, share what worked, admit what didn’t, and help each other get better.

There are far too many people to name who have influenced me over the years. If I tried, I would inevitably leave someone important out. Some were formal mentors. Some probably never realized they were mentoring me at all. They were Microsoft employees, Community MVPs, fellow Dynamic Communities All-Stars, partners, presenters, consultants, developers, and end users. Sometimes the lesson came from a conference session. Sometimes it happened over dinner, in a hallway, at a user group meeting, on a phone call, or because someone sitting next to me said, “Have you ever thought about doing it this way?”

Those conversations changed the trajectory of my career.

Looking back, I realize there is a big difference between learning the software and learning from the community surrounding the software. I had already been using NAV for years before I found this community. But once I found it, my knowledge, my network, and eventually my career grew in ways I never could have predicted.

And somewhere along the way, I went from being the person asking all the questions to becoming one of the people others came to with theirs. It’s funny how that happens. Maybe that is one reason I have become so passionate about questions.

I have been working on a Playbook called “20 Questions Every New Business Central Customer Should Ask Before (and During) Implementation.” The more I write, the more convinced I become that great ERP implementations aren’t built on perfect answers but on better questions.

We spend a lot of time during an ERP project asking what Business Central can do: Can it handle our manufacturing? Can it manage our warehouse? Can it integrate with this system? Can we recreate this report? Can we customize that process? How much will it cost? How long will it take?

While those are important questions, some of the questions that have the greatest impact on success have very little to do with software. One of my favorites is simply, “Who owns the success of this implementation?”

Notice I didn’t say who owns the project plan. There will be a project manager. There will be consultants, developers, subject matter experts, executives, super users, and plenty of people with tasks assigned to their names. But who owns the outcome?

Your Microsoft partner can bring experience, technical knowledge, best practices, methodology, and lessons learned from hundreds of other projects. What they cannot do is own your business transformation for you. Someone inside your organization must keep the project connected to the business objectives that started it in the first place.

Because somewhere between kickoff and go-live, things get messy. Deadlines get tight. People get busy. Decisions become harder. Someone inevitably says, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” and suddenly making Business Central behave exactly like the old system sounds easier than changing the process.

That can be a very expensive way to buy new technology.

Another question I ask in discovery meetings is, “When this project is finished, what will success actually look like?” You would be surprised how often that question makes a room go quiet.

The CFO wants a faster month-end close. Operations wants better inventory accuracy. Sales wants better visibility. Warehouse leadership wants less paper. IT wants fewer manual processes. Executives want scalability and better information.

None of them are wrong. The problem is that everyone may be running toward a different finish line. “We went live” doesn’t count as success. Go-live is a milestone. Success is what happens because you went live.

Did we shorten the close? Did inventory accuracy improve? Did we eliminate duplicate entry? Can leadership get information faster? Did we remove spreadsheets? Are employees spending less time entering information and more time using it? Now we’re talking about success.

There is another little question I wish more organizations would ask before requesting a customization: “Why do we do it this way?”

Those six words can save an incredible amount of time and money.

“We export this to Excel.” Why? “We’ve always done it that way.”

“We enter this information twice.” Why? “The old system required it.”

“We need this customization.” Why? “Because our current system has it.”

If you automate a bad process, congratulations! You now have a faster bad process.

Sometimes the best Business Central customization is the one you discover you never needed.

The funny thing is that organizations can become incredibly good at living with their own workarounds. Eventually, the spreadsheet doesn’t seem strange anymore. The manual entry becomes “just part of the process.” The report that takes someone three hours every Friday simply becomes part of their job.

Eventually, we stop asking why. And that is another place where community becomes so valuable. Sometimes you need someone from outside your four walls to hear what you’re doing and say, “Wait. Why are you doing it that way?” That question can be worth its weight in gold.

A partner sees the problem from one perspective. An end user who lives inside Business Central every day sees it from another. A Microsoft employee brings insight into the product. An MVP may know a feature you didn’t even realize existed. Another customer may have solved the exact same problem six months ago.

Put all those people in a room together, get them talking, and pretty amazing things can happen.

That is one of the reasons I am so excited that Community Summit North America is heading back to Nashville this October. Nashville holds a very special place in my heart and some wonderful memories from my own Dynamics community journey. The last time Summit NA brought us there, I was serving as Advisory Board Chairman, and it was also the year I received my Dynamic Communities All-Star Award. Going back feels like a little full-circle moment.

I think about that end user who discovered the Dynamics community around 2013–2014 and realized there was an entire group of people out there willing to share what they knew. Then I think about where that journey has taken me: serving in community leadership, presenting, teaching, mentoring, becoming an All-Star, and now having the opportunity to pour some of what others gave me back into this community. That is pretty special.

And it is why I will tell anyone coming to Nashville: Absolutely come for the education. Fill your schedule with sessions. Learn about Business Central. Talk to Microsoft. Visit the ISVs. Take pages and pages of notes. But leave room for the people.

Sit down at a table with someone you don’t know. Introduce yourself to the person beside you before a session starts. Talk to another end user about what they’re doing. Ask a presenter a question after their session. Find the MVP who said something that made you think differently. Talk to the partners, consultants, developers, Microsoft employees, All-Stars, and users who make up this crazy, wonderful ecosystem.

And when someone newer to the community asks you a question, make room for them too. You never know which conversation will matter.

I can tell you from experience that you may walk into Summit looking for the answer to a NAV or Business Central question and walk out with a relationship that influences the next decade of your career.

I will also be presenting a session this year called “Stop Working Around Your ERP: 10 Business Central Features You Should Be Using Right Now,” which, when I think about it, fits perfectly with this whole idea.

We invest in incredibly capable ERP technology and then somehow manage to surround it with spreadsheets, manual processes, sticky notes, outside databases, and workarounds. Sometimes the functionality we need is already sitting right there inside Business Central. We simply don’t know it exists—or we’ve been doing something the same way for so long that we’ve stopped asking whether there might be a better way.

So that is my challenge to you, whether you are implementing Business Central today, have been using NAV since the dark ages with some of us, or are somewhere in between.

Keep asking questions.

Who owns our success? What does success actually look like? Why do we do it this way? What are we doing outside Business Central that we could be doing inside it? What workaround have we simply learned to live with? Is there a better way?

And don’t just ask those questions inside your own organization. Ask your partner. Ask Microsoft. Ask an MVP. Ask another end user. Ask the person sitting next to you at Summit.

Then, when someone comes to you looking for an answer, share what you know because that’s how this community works.

Someone answered my questions. Someone invited me into the room. Someone challenged me. Someone encouraged me to speak, teach, lead, and mentor. And eventually, I got the opportunity to do the same for someone else.

The software may have introduced me to this community, but the people changed my journey.

So, Nashville, here we come again. I can’t wait to see what questions—and what conversations—are waiting for us this time.

Great ERP implementations aren’t built on perfect answers. They’re built on better questions.

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