Power Trends for Power Apps

[00:00:00] Digital Adoption Talks

Hello, I’m Rick McCutcheon Microsoft Business Applications MVP, and I want to thank you for tuning into Digital Adoption Talks today. There are over 300,000. If that’s correct, 300,000 business professionals with digital adoption in their job titles on LinkedIn on the show, along with my co-host Joachim Schumacher CEO, ClickLearn.

We talk to some of the leading digital adoption experts in the Microsoft ecosystem and we’ve got an expert today. This week we are thrilled to talk to another Business Applications MVP and Power Platform expert, Kylie Kiser. Kylie, welcome. 

Kylie: Thank you. Glad to be here. 

Rick:  Okay, so let’s just sort of kick this off and we’ll introduce ourselves and tell us a little bit about your background.

We’ll start with you, Joachim.

[00:01:00] ClickLearn is a solution for creating user adoption inside the Dynamics Suite

Joachim: Yeah, I’m, I’m the CEO of ClickLearn. So we are software company. We develop a solution for creating user adoption inside the entire dynamic suite. And we are on a daily basis in service serving customers and ISVs around the world in creating better user experiences.

Rick: Okay, thank you. And Kylie, we are privileged to have you here because, even when you’re not on a digital adoption show, that’s what you do. You run user groups, you mentor people, you speak at conferences, and even when I meet up with you outside of the show, you’re talking digital adoption.

So tell us a little bit about your background and who you are.

Kylie: Yeah. So I’m Kylie Kaiser, as Rick said. I’m a business applications MVP and I work as a solution architect at Hitachi Solutions, which basically means I’m working with clients day in day out and teaching them how to use the tool and delivering the best tools and solutions for them.

[00:02:00] Power trends for Power Apps –going on 10 years

And part of that role does include doing training and guiding them in their training plan for their users. And I’ve been working with Dynamics for… I guess since it was crm, right? So 10, 12 years now, and been involved with the power platform since those tools. Started launching. Most of that time been running the Washington DC user group, formerly focused just on Dynamics 365, now also on dynamics and the power platform.

Right now we’re meeting monthly, so constantly bringing new content and discussion opportunities to our community. So it’s great to be here today to talk more about.

Rick: Kylie, we should talk a little bit about your background and your rise to become an mvp because you were not just a user, but you were an administrator, a regular person CRM system at one point.

[00:03:00] Start in CRM and workflow automation

Kylie: Yeah, true. So when I, when I first started, I kind of fell into working with CRM like so many people do, and knew nothing about it, and started on a team as just kind of a project manager assistant or something like that. And used that time to learn a lot about workflows, especially because that’s what was important in automation at the time.

And I learned a lot about administration of the system and that’s what brought me to my next role where I was an admin with a financial services company for many years and I worked with them and became kind of their product owner and was working closely with our consultants and working closely with the team and the business to deliver functionality to them.

And that team, we also were doing a lot,we did a migration from 2011 to 2016, which was a big deal at the time. And that’s important for this conversation because it was a big training opportunity, right? Because we had all of our. Hundreds of users that all needed to be trained on the new functionality and they needed to be happy about it.

 [00:04:00] Product owner role for CRM sytem working with different business groups

And so, all of those topics fit into what we’re doing here. And then in my more recent role, right before Hitachi, also doing a product owner role for the CRM system and working with different groups throughout the business. But why that’s especially important for this conversation is that’s how I met the lovely folks from ClickLearn and started working with their tools.

So part of my role there was kind of leading the rollout of ClickLearn to our Business and setting up the learning portal and working with our team to start iteratively delivering training content to our users.

Rick: Fantastic. So I’m going to actually start our next question with you as well.

[00:04:36] So, as an mvp, how important is digital adoption and leveraging the right learning platforms to your clients and the people you mentor?

Kylie: Training and learning is just so important and it’s so difficult, right? Because it’s the hardest part of any new system is getting people to actually use it and what’s the point of doing all this work and delivering these systems if nobody’s gonna use it, right?

[00:05:00] Need tools to use system and to continually reinforce training

And so we need to make sure that they have the tools to use the system and continually be getting better and enjoying what they’re doing. And I think we also need we just need to make sure that users know what they need to be able to do their jobs effectively, and we need to find ways to continually enforce this training.

So I think there’s a lot of different ways that we can do that, right? Whether it’s through a lunch and learn or tips and tricks or some kind of embedded training, but we just need to find a way to make it really easy. To access quick and relevant materials for users. And I think we even see this not just when you’re training a specific group of users at a client organization, but even out in the world, right?

As I’m creating YouTube content or things like that, as it’s really important to make sure things are easy to find, make sure they’re small, digestible bits so that people can quickly get the information they need and get back to productivity.

[00:06:02] Trends for Power Apps: Learning styles and content format in training delivery

I think also, Something I think we’ll talk about a little bit further later is also learning styles and things like that is we really need to figure out how to take advantage of people learning differently or wanting to consume content differently.

Because they want to see things in multiple ways and be able to get that information, which makes it harder on us needing to deliver that training. But I think it’s really important to make sure they can effectively consume it. And then of course we add in the additional complexity that our platforms and our tools continue to change every day.

 [00:07:00] Trends for Power Apps: Flexible learning and training to manage changes and updates 

We need flexible learning and flexible training to help people actually still be able to use the training if changes happen or be able to update. Or for us to be able to update the training that we’re delivering quickly as those changes happen. So I guess the short answer is digital adoption is super important and it’s very important to findgreat tools that are flexible for delivering this.

Because it’s like our most, the most important thing of what we do. Right.

Rick: Perfect. Joachim, what would you like to add?

Joachim: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting to hear the idea around learning styles, because some consider it’s sort of an urban myth within the learning, but I think that most of those studies are actually concentrated on preschoolers or school generations.

But I think that what we are covering now in terms of technology is that we have a relatively large divergence inside the job market in terms of age and especially in terms of your skill set inside it. And in order to cater for all of those, I really think that the idea of learning styles comes into play.

[00:08:03] Trends for Power Apps: A single form of learning does not apply for every learning purpose

The idea that there are different, at least different learning paces, and that a single form of learning be it inside the system in sort of a speech bubble style, might not apply as the right tool of trade for every single learning purpose. I think it has to do with the age difference that we see on the job market.

I think it’s really interesting that this is coming into play again.

Rick: Okay, great. So the next question we have, Kylie when we start to look at what’s happened over the last couple years, you know, we could tap somebody on the shoulder and say, Hey, how do you do this? All of a sudden we’re distributed into our own homes and we’re kind of on our own.

I think we’ve seen a lot of effects in the way that people learn and their learning styles. So let’s talk a little bit about, you know, working in seclusion and also, you’re doing a lot of work with power apps along with first party apps. So talk a little bit about, you know, some of the, the things that you’re seeing with digital adoption in those.

 [00:09:00] Trends for Power Apps: Struggles in training people remotely

Kylie: So, yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head as we as you’re talking about the struggles that we’re having now because it’s so difficult for to train people virtually, I think because even so, pre-work from home, everything, the golden standard was if you wanted to do good training, you had to get people in a room and get them focused.

And so now we can’t do a full day training class like you used to. Right? You can, but you’re going to lose attention. Right. And you need to find ways to keep bringing people in and finding ways to keep that training engaging. And also I think part of this involves finding ways to build community around your training as well, right?

[00:09:30] Trends in Power Apps: Make people feel comfortable asking for help

Whether that’s, Community outside of your organization, you know, through Twitter or whatever, through our chapter, or if that’s internal. But I think that’s so difficult to make sure people feel comfortable asking for help and asking for finding the training and things like that. And I think as we talk about learning styles as that came up, we’re, it’s, so I think what’s important

[00:10:00]  Trends in Power Apps: Learning styles do exist, but not in the way you think

You also brought up a great point, like a lot of people think learning styles don’t exist, and Heidi Newhauser did a great presentation for my chapter a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, where she brought up that exact point. Like a lot of people say they don’t exist, but really the study shows not that people have a specific learning style, but that people need to experience content in multiple ways.

Right. Yeah. So they need some of that hands on. They need some of the talking, they need some other avenues. And so it’s really, it’s hard to do that virtually too. And so I think that’s a struggle is just finding ways to draw people in and, and embrace all of those things because it’s so easy.

You know, Rick and I both do webinars and things like, that’s so easy to get up here and just talk to people. But then we’re missing so many different ways that we need to help people engage with that content to really learn the material. So I think that’s why it’s important to look at some of these different embedded training opportunities, right?

[00:11:00] Trends for Power Apps: A variety of formats for learning

Anything that can be interactive, that it’s right there, that they can get to it quickly, and then they can choose how they want to engage with that content. Like having videos versus having things that they can read. I think that’s really important. I think we just need to, I, I think it’s good being remote.

I think it causes us to not just say, oh, well, if we have in-person training, that will be enough. Right? We have to embrace and look at those other options because, because we need to. Right. And then I think it’s actually gonna help our adoption. More because we’re using all of these different things.

But I think you also were asking about power apps and first party apps and how training is different for all of those and kind of what’s happening.

Rick: Well, you know, just, just on that, you know, I can go online and see how to use the sales module. There’s lots of training out there, but you know, I’ve got some citizen developer building something and all of a sudden it shows up on my. You know, it might be easy to build, but how do we get people to absorb that [00:12:00] technology?

[00:12:00] User Adoption and governance – getting the right information to users

Right? Yeah. And I think there are so many, there’s so many. Little questions in your big question, right? Because we’re also in, in your kind of example, we’re not just talking about user adoption, we’re also talking about governance, right? And making sure that our makers know what they’re doing and they’re not getting bad information and making sure we’re empowering them to deliver good apps in a safe way to the organization, right? 

And so I think a lot of this comes back to the kind of center of excellence idea, right? Is setting up a place for people within our organization who are interested in delivering apps and providing feedback, giving them a safe place to have those conversations.

[00:13:00] We can’t train on apps if we don’t know they exist

Talk about things and learn how to deliver. How to deliver those apps, right? Like our training needs to include that maker training. Like how do you create an app? How do you work with  dataverse? And things like that. And I think that’s scary for a lot of us coming from an IT background, right? You’re like, I don’t want my regular people to be able to create these apps and do things.

I think we’re kind of at that point in our world now that we need to give them that power and we need to know how can we do it effectively and safely. Right? Because we can’t train on apps if we don’t know they exist, right? So if we have this center of excellence and we’re working together as they’re delivering these apps, then we can figure out what we need training on and who to train it on, and making sure the right people have access to these apps so they’re not just showing up on your list unannounced.

 Right. Like you said. Okay. Thank you. Joachim, would you like to add anything to what Kylie was saying?

[00:14:00] Power Apps enable normal business people to create applications

Joachim: I think that these no-code, low-code I wouldn’t want be on the back end of that right now, because as you said, I, that’s a configuration management team and probably a change management team as well that that, that we probably haven’t seen all the solutions to. But one of the things that’s really interesting is that instead of having like 178 apps, which is, you know, by any means, a very large number of applications, inside an organization on average, now you’re now with power apps coming into the picture and us enabling essentially normal business people to be able to create greater applications.

That scope is going to grow tremendously. And, that obviously also pushes the idea that that, you know VIN based. At some point is going to lose its complete completely anything you know, any reason to have that because the scope outside is, is going to be completely built up by small composable Lego breaks and the breaks are getting smaller and they’re increasing in quantity.

[00:15:00] Organizations becoming more unique to each other in their IT landscapes

So I think  that the training perspective from the client side really pushes towards, you need to get this done inside your own organization because you’re really becoming very unique in your IT landscape. You don’t look like anyone else anymore. So I think that for me as you know, on the user adoption side, I’m, I’m very happy about the trend, but I think that if I were on the other side of the table, on the IT side, probably not so much.

Rick: Okay. Thank you. So Kylie, we wanna thank you for joining us today on this show and any closing thoughts. And also where can people follow you? I hear you have a, a huge following on some social media platforms, .

Kylie: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And, you know, good luck to all of our watchers on their training and adoption journey.

[00:16:00] Check out Kylie’s blog

Yeah, I’d love for you guys to check out my blog. It’s at kyliekaiser.com or you can find me. Twitter or LinkedIn or YouTube, and I’d love you guys to come out to my chapter meeting. So we’re the Washington DC Power Platform user group, and you can find that link on my blog or on any of my social media.

But I’d love you guys to come out. We meet monthly and we’re meeting virtually so people can come from all over the world.

Rick: Okay. Thanks for having you, Kylie. You.

Joachim: Normally I spent the last two minutes in trying to promote my own product, but I’m just gonna do something different. I’m just gonna ask everyone to go and follow Kai’s initiative on the power platform.

I think you’re moving really fast ahead on, on on the power platform. I think there’s some really interesting stuff going on. So if you follow Kylie Kaiser’s blog on this, I think you’re in good shape to, to start, you know, seeing the perspective of what can these low code no code platforms do for you,

Kylie: Well, thank you so much.

Joachim: You’re welcome.

Rick: Okay, thanks everybody. Have a great day. Thanks