eXtreme CRM 2016 – So… It is one week until the Innovation Challenge starts…
Chris Clark, CEO Prosperity 24.7
I remember this moment fairly well, why? It was around this day that my colleague Simon and I sat down to have a conversation regarding what did we want to achieve from taking part, who was going to do what and what problem were we going to try and solve.
You might now be thinking “Eh? I have signed up to hack a solution together in Dynamics CRM 2016.” Well, all I would say is “fine” but at the same time I would add the old English saying “fail to plan – plan to fail!”
…This might explain why the team at eXtreme CRM have asked me to give you all a few pointers as to the approach that we took and how this helped us to walk away with a coveted Microsoft Band and more importantly the applause and good will of the 400 strong audience.
Before I go any further, I thought you might want to see our team’s presentation for some ideas.
As you will note, we leveraged ‘bad taste and humour’ quite significantly to get the audience on board with the truly brutal concept ‘KYC : Know Your Corpse’.
So how did we come up with such an idea – ‘Registering Deaths’
Well, when we sat down to plan our idea we leveraged a really simple framework to shape our ideas. We do this for any ‘product development’ and therefore, we thought that this should be no different, we would strongly recommend you take a look at this as it will greatly help your own ‘Value Proposition’ when it comes to selling the idea on stage:
For more information on this template, you can of course dash out and buy the book: https://strategyzer.com/vpd
Not ours I hasten to add, just a very good resource for product development and idea creation.
Taking the idea on a journey
So we had come up with an idea – Registering Deaths – this was based on a very real need which, when we looked at the wider market opportunity (by simply looking at a popular search engine – ;o) ) we ascertained that there was a significant issue with ‘John & Jane Doe’s’ going un-registered and similarly the European market were also striving for ‘Tell Us Once’ initiatives for the registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages – we knew that if we could come up with a simple, digital enabled method to improve this registration it was then a case of integrating a very real need to a brilliant system – Dynamics CRM of course.
Going back to the diagram above, this meant that we had to think about benefits and pain relievers, therefore our canvas looked like this:
What happened next?
Well, we pretty much parked the idea ready for eXtreme CRM although I did spend some time coming up with some creative ideas regarding how the product could look from the point of a ‘mobile app splash screen’ which would have the most impact when on a 10m high screen (and it worked!)
Developing the solution
I cannot take any credit here whatsoever, I am the ideas and presentation guy – not the developer!
For this magic we need to thank:
- Simon Jackson
- Arsenico Neckebroeck
- Nick Reilly
- Martin Sterusky
What should I do over the coming week?
Well, if you have not already signed up to take part in the eXtreme CRM 2016 innovation challenge – DO!
You will be mentored by eight superb Microsoft Dynamics CRM experts and you will probably get as much value from this rapid learning experience than any part of the entire (and brilliant) conference in Warsaw. For me personally, eXtreme CRM is about making connections to the entire European and US Dynamics CRM ecosystem – you cannot meet great people unless you take yourself out of your comfort zone and immerse yourself – there is no better and safer place to do this than the Innovation Challenge at eXtreme CRM.
What problem should we solve?
Think about your community – either locally, nationally or globally – can your idea aid or resolve a significant humanitarian issue? Think about the wider prosperity of your home town and you may well surprise yourselves by coming up with a solution which genuinely impacts peoples lives for the better – how great would that be…?
When does it start
I look forward to seeing you all on Sunday 17th April 2016 in Warsaw – I will be there to help at the idea stage and with helping you to shape your value proposition and how that helps to provide content for your presentations – for those turning up with a completed ‘Value Proposition Canvas’ I will buy your team a beer (not one to share, one each – and obviously not at breakfast time!)