Delivery Guide

Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint

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[Customer Name]

Project

[Project Name]

Prepared by

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[Document contributors]
Revision and Signoff Sheet

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 Table of Contents
1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1

2 Executive Overview ....................................................................................................................................... 2

2.1 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 3

2.2 Vision and Scope .................................................................................................................................................... 3

2.3 Risk Assessment ..................................................................................................................................................... 4

2.4 Potential Next Steps ............................................................................................................................................... 4

3 Initiate Engagement ...................................................................................................................................... 6

3.1 Ensure Readiness for Service ................................................................................................................................. 6

3.2 Conduct Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting ................................................................................................................... 6

3.3 Customize Service and Create Baseline Agenda .................................................................................................... 6

4 Kickoff Meeting ............................................................................................................................................. 8

4.1 Understand the Customer’s Situation.................................................................................................................... 9

4.2 Ensure the Customer Benefits from the Engagement ........................................................................................... 9

4.3 Assemble Core Delivery Team ............................................................................................................................. 10

5 Engagement Phases .................................................................................................................................... 11

6 Initial Demonstration to Customer ............................................................................................................... 12

7 Information Gathering Phase ...................................................................................................................... 13

7.1 Functional Requirements and Fit ......................................................................................................................... 13

7.1.1 General Foundation .................................................................................................................................... 13

7.1.2 Finance ........................................................................................................................................................ 13

7.1.3 Trade ........................................................................................................................................................... 14

7.1.4 Inventory and Logistics ............................................................................................................................... 14

7.1.5 Production ................................................................................................................................................... 14

7.1.6 Planning and Scheduling ............................................................................................................................. 14

7.1.7 Projects ....................................................................................................................................................... 15

7.1.8 Human Resources ....................................................................................................................................... 15

7.1.9 Other Modules ............................................................................................................................................ 15

7.2 Integration and Interfaces.................................................................................................................................... 15

7.3 Data Migration ..................................................................................................................................................... 16

7.4 Quality and Testing .............................................................................................................................................. 16

7.5 Technical Assessment .......................................................................................................................................... 16

7.5.1 Infrastructure Inventory.............................................................................................................................. 16

7.5.2 Customer Pain Areas ................................................................................................................................... 18

7.5.3 Requirements .............................................................................................................................................. 18

8 Business Process Workshops ........................................................................................................................ 19

9 Findings and Review .................................................................................................................................... 20

9.1 Fit Gap Worksheet ............................................................................................................................................... 20

9.2 Solution Blueprint Report .................................................................................................................................... 20

9.3 Customer Review ................................................................................................................................................. 20

10 Closeout Meeting ..................................................................................................................................... 21

11 Effort Estimate – Work Breakdown Structure ............................................................................................ 22

12 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 23

13 Appendices .............................................................................................................................................. 24

13.1 Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint Process Flow ....................................................................................................... 24

14 References ............................................................................................................................................... 25

14.1 Links .................................................................................................................................................................. 25

 1 INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this document is to provide guidelines to Microsoft Partner consultants who are providing a Fit Gap
and Solution Blueprint for customers who are implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX. Areas covered include roles and
responsibilities for the consultant, the customer, and any vendors or partners who may be involved in the project.
 2 EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW
This section describes the major issues facing a customer that may have prompted them to begin the planning
process for a Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint. It describes the overall program, the purpose of the engagement, and
outlines the major activities covered.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is used to refer to an “enterprise view” of a business; it means leveraging
applications to manage the operations and gain a view of a company as a connected single entity, as opposed to a
collection of activity silos. The customer may find the following issues with their current information systems,
prompting them to evaluate ERP solutions:

 Business Processes (BP): They do not support the customer's critical business needs and are not flexible
enough to change as the business itself evolves. They are unable to easily perform core business processes
such as quickly closing a financial period, tracking variances, product costing, or forecasting demand. They
are unable to eliminate manual workarounds to reconcile data and / or transactions between systems.

 Supply Chain (SC): They are unable to provide appropriate access to information for their customers,
suppliers, and partners; processes are independent of one another and not linked together into an overall
chain whose purpose should be to supply the end-user with products or services at the right time, cost and
in the right configuration.

 Business Intelligence (BI): They don’t provide timely access to the information needed to make critical
business decisions and are unable to integrate business related intelligence, information and master data
across company divisions and organizations; it is difficult to “mine” information and produce useful reports
and inquiries.

 Architecture: They lack flexibility due to home-grown applications, old systems or spreadsheets that are
being used to manage the overall business operations.

During the course of their evaluation, the customer may have found that some of their business processes align very
well with Microsoft Dynamics AX. They may also have found that a certain percentage of their processes can be
covered by independent software vendor (ISV) solutions, while some may require custom development.

To quantify this in a more certain manner, the customer can request a Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint. The benefit to
the customer is to gain a clear understanding of the solution’s fit with mission critical and major, key business
processes, before the commencement of the implementation project itself.
2.1 Executive Summary
The customer engages a Microsoft Partner for the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint offering for the following reasons:

 To understand the level of Fit between their organization’s requirements and Microsoft Dynamics AX

 To understand what level of customization and configuration will be required

 To understand which ISV solutions may be required

 To obtain a blueprint for the delivery of the solution that can be used in the subsequent project planning
and analysis

Accordingly, the decisions made during this engagement must align with the customer’s overall business level goals
and objectives as follows:

 Validation of the “Degree of Fit” of Microsoft Dynamics AX to the customer’s business requirements

 Gain business buy-in and support for Microsoft Dynamics AX as a solution that meets the customer’s
needs

 Identification of an Implementation Strategy and its associated Project Phases

 Determination of the various staffing and cost options and their implications. This will allow the customer
to select the right balance between costs and benefits

2.2 Vision and Scope

The Vision for this type of engagement is to determine the degree of fit of the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution with the
customer’s business requirements, as well as to determine the amount of configuration and customization required, and
how the system will be used by customer. This will be accomplished through a series of interviews, workshops, and
demonstrations to the customer’s business and Information Technology (IT) personnel during which feedback on their
business and IT requirements will be collected.

This engagement fits into the overall program by providing the customer with a clear understanding of the solution’s
fit with key business processes, and business objectives, before commencement of the full discovery phase as part of
an implementation project.

Below is a list of in-scope and out-of-scope activities for this engagement.

In-Scope:

 Development of a prioritized list of requirements

 Review of requirements versus those that are available in the current systems

 Estimate of Degree of Fit (i.e. identification of what is native functionality, configuration, or customization)

 High-level estimate of the services required for configuration and customization for each requirement
  Development of a Solution Blueprint which provides details, from a Business Perspective, of how Microsoft
Dynamics AX will be delivered and used

Out-of-Scope:

 Detailed Functional and Technical Specifications

 Detailed “To-be” process maps, training documentation and end user training

 Implementation Plans

 Detailed Project Plan, Return-On-Investment (ROI) calculation or a Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TOC) analysis

 Any other items not explicitly defined as in-scope

Recommendations will be detailed and documented in the Microsoft Sure Step Fit / Gap and Solution Blueprint at
the end of the engagement.

2.3 Risk Assessment

The following items could have a negative impact on the success of the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement:

 Business requirements are not available

 Supporting documentation is unavailable

 Business and IT subject matter experts are not available during the workshops

 Business and technical decision makers are unavailable

 Lack of an Executive Sponsor to define the scope and champion the engagement

 Inability to reach decisions in a timely manner

2.4 Potential Next Steps

Depending on the outcome of this engagement, and in order to meet the customer’s expectations, several other
activities may be required, which are identified as the “next steps” listed below:

 Sure Step Proof of Concept (POC): Microsoft Dynamics AX is configured in the customer’s test system
around certain critical requirements. This is then demonstrated to the Business Decision Makers (BDM)
and IT personnel in a conference room setting to validate their requirements.

 Sure Step Business Systems Architecture Assessment: This provides an overall architectural design
review, validates scalability, and identifies any gaps in the customer’s Standard Operating Environment
(SOE). The objective is to provide data required to determine the overall hardware and software
requirements and related costs.

 Sure Step Scoping Assessment: This consists of a series of documents that provides a high level project
cost and resource plan specific to the customer. It describes how they would go about implementing
Microsoft Dynamics AX and what that implementation would cost. Its objective is to determine a total cost
to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX.
 Sure Step Business Case: Standard templates from Nucleus Research are used to prepare a business case
for the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX.
3 INITIATE ENGAGEMENT
Before the engagement starts, the delivery consultants should become familiar with the customer’s business
environment and operating constraints by gathering information from the Microsoft Partner’s resources. It is also
helpful to spend time on the customer’s website to become familiar with their products and services, etc.

3.1 Ensure Readiness for Service

To ensure readiness, the following activities should be performed:

 Identify specific consulting and customer resources that are needed to perform a detailed analysis of each
high-level business process and identify the associated requirements.

 Identify specific consulting and customer resources that can review any system integration requirements.

3.2 Conduct Internal Pre-Kickoff Meeting

Prior to meeting the customer and delivery team should meet to review the customer’s goals, expectations and
needs of both the customer and Microsoft Partner. This provides an opportunity for the delivery consultants
(technical, business, and operations) to review and discuss their existing knowledge, and review any documentation
about the customer.

The Business Requirements gathering phase marks the official start of the engagement. The goal of this stage is to
define and document the company’s business requirements related to Microsoft Dynamics AX and any needed ISV
solutions. These requirements include Business, System, Technical, Integration / Interfaces, Data, and Quality /
Testing. Taking a "big picture" approach at the initial stage of the project allows us to consider all the requirements
and possibilities related to if, how and when Microsoft Dynamics AX is deployed in the various locations and
departments in the customer’s organization. At this time we also determine which Microsoft Dynamics AX
functionality is required and document the Deployment Strategy that lays out in what phase of the implementation
project the various modules and / or functionality will be implemented.

We kick off the project with an in-depth look at the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics AX has to offer. We then
match that functionality to the customer’s requirements so that we can determine where there is a fit and where
there are gaps. Gaps determine the required level of customization or configuration of Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The consultants need to determine the project’s detailed plan, and agree on the roles and responsibilities of each
participant for the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement.

Additionally, one of the team members must take responsibility for arranging logistics with the customer, including
reserving rooms, audio / visual equipment, building access, food, and securing access to and arranging the various
meetings with the company’s executives and staff.

3.3 Customize Service and Create Baseline Agenda

The Pre-Kickoff Meeting is the time to agree on the final agenda for the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement.
Delivery of the engagement depends on the customer’s existing environment. Once you’ve established the overall
engagement flow, you can fill in the baseline agenda with discreet activities such as workshop sessions, project
management meetings, and report authoring. The engagement provides a standard baseline agenda that must be
customized to suit specific customer needs.
Note Allocate ample time on the agenda for writing the final report. It is the main deliverable of the engagement and
must have a high level of quality.

Based on the Pre-Kickoff Meeting, the delivery consultant should have learned enough about the customer to select
the tools and the interviewers when engaging with the customer. The delivery consultant will also have enough
knowledge to customize the agenda to suit a specific customer’s needs. This agenda should be confirmed and
amended as needed after the Kickoff Meeting.

The overall agenda, program of works, and focus of the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement should be agreed
to by the customer’s project sponsor at the beginning of the engagement.
4 KICKOFF MEETING
The Kickoff Meeting is where all participants agree on the engagement’s delivery plan, goals, deliverables, and
schedule for the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint.

The Kickoff Meeting is the first formal meeting during the engagement and has the following primary purposes:

 Establish the delivery team’s credibility

 Gain the confidence of the customer by showing the Microsoft Partner consultant’s professionalism

 Set and confirm expectations

 Gather basic, high-level information about the customer’s requirements

 Define the various roles and responsibilities for this engagement

Introduce the team to the customer and set the stage for the project during this meeting. Some of the general topics
that should be covered are:

 Introduction of team members and identification of other participants whose assistance will be needed

 Introduction of the topics that will be covered during delivery of the engagement

 Customer’s general expectations, requirements, goals, and timelines

 Items that are in or out of scope. Out-of-scope items should be defined before beginning the engagement,
which provides an opportunity to reinforce the scope of the engagement

 Establishment of the customer’s responsibility for all design decisions; since the customer knows their
environment and users best. The engagement provides guidance and recommendations, but ultimately the
customer is responsible for making final decisions

 Planned data and information gathering schedule and audience required for each phase. This should have
been already discussed with the customer’s executive sponsor and project leader with a tentative
schedule determined before the Kickoff Meeting

 Consultant’s work schedule and location. The engagement can be delivered continuously or, if needed,
divided into segments

Written minutes, including action items, should be collected and distributed after the Kickoff Meeting.
4.1 Understand the Customer’s Situation
Before starting the engagement, the consultant should have gathered enough background information about the
current environment so that the engagement is focused in the right areas. This is not an in-depth analysis, which is
beyond the scope of this exercise, but it should capture how the customer currently feels. Some examples of areas
that should be covered include:

 Customer’s general need for a business solution

 Current system and the reason for changing it

 Current architectures in use within the organization

 Enterprise architecture standards, principles, and constraints

 Code development standards

 Current technologies in use within the operation

 Integration and interface standards

 Current master data and transaction volumes

 Number and type of users

 Current skill levels

 Current change control management processes

 Current ERP environment, and any other such tools that are in use

 Current status of any initiatives in the organization relating to the current ERP environment

The consultant also needs to know whether the customer has a current technology roadmap. This may either be
implied or explicitly written. The customer’s roadmap and how it relates to the “Microsoft roadmap” is something
that the consultant delivering this engagement should consider, especially when preparing his recommendations.

There are no mandatory deliverables as a result of this exercise, but the consultant should use the key findings of
this exercise as inputs to the findings and recommendations that are delivered at the end of the engagement.

4.2 Ensure the Customer Benefits from the Engagement

Engage all project stakeholders to ensure expectations have been set correctly. The entire project team should have
a common understanding and a buy-in of the vision and scope for this engagement. They should understand the
importance of the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint, as well as how it fits into the customer’s overall plans and objectives.
Identify tangible benefits and focus on the technical, business, and operations aspects as appropriate. Examples
include:

 Help me understand my environment

 Help me count the number and size of my databases

 Help me know if I am following the latest best practices

  Help me know if my IT environment is configured appropriately

You should be asking yourself these questions when preparing for the engagement:

 What are the key decisions that the customer needs assistance in making?

 What are the potential showstoppers that can be avoided?

 Are there any fundamental knowledge gaps?

 How can we bring the customer to a solution faster?

4.3 Assemble Core Delivery Team

The Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement is created to be delivered by a virtual team with collective knowledge
in, potentially, three disciplines: business, technical, and operations.

The functional part of the engagement can be delivered by one or more Microsoft Dynamics AX Functional
Consultants who have product training and practical experience in the functional areas that are within scope, as well
as experience in conducting interviews with relevant stakeholders. The technical part of the engagement can be
delivered by one or more Technical Consultants who have the skills to perform an audit of the environment. They
would be using a number of Microsoft and third-party tools and will conduct interviews with all of the relevant
stakeholders. The Technical Consultant must also have experience in estimating the effort required for configuration
and customization to satisfy business requirements.

This means the customer must provide relevant resources (system architects, administrators, and managers) to work
with the consultant to achieve these goals. For more information about required resources, see the Fit Gap &
Solution Blueprint Resource and Readiness Guide.
5 ENGAGEMENT PHASES
The Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement will begin with the onsite team determining the degree of fit of the
Microsoft Dynamics AX solution with the customer’s business processes. In order to determine this, the amount of
development and customization required, and how the solution will be used by the customer.

The following phases have been identified:

 Initial Demonstration to the customer

 Information Gathering

 Business Process Workshops

 Findings and Review

 Close out Meeting

The phases above will involve a series of workshops, demonstrations to, and interviews with, the customer’s
business and IT Subject Matter Experts (SME).
6 INITIAL DEMONSTRATION TO CUSTOMER
The Initial Demonstration is the first meeting of the engagement itself and has the following primary purposes:

 Demonstrate out-of-the-box capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX

 Confirm Customer expectations

 Gather basic information about any additional functionality the customer can readily identify during the
demonstration
7 INFORMATION GATHERING PHASE
The Information Gathering phase follows the same framework as the Data Gathering phase, regardless of the
customer’s environment. The following describes the steps, requirements, resources, and tools for data gathering
for this type of engagement.

Note that for the purpose of the engagement, the only environment the delivery consultant needs to be concerned
with is the current production environment. Throughout the interviewing process, it is expected the delivery
consultant will take notes that will be used as inputs for the final set of deliverables.

Helpful in this phase are the Sure Step Role Tailored Questionnaires, they can be used to guide the delivery
consultants through each functional area of the business, and should be used to document requirements in every
area. There are five such questionnaires; General (required in most every business), and separate addendums for (1)
Advertising, (2) Architecture, Engineering and Construction, (3) Manufacturing and (4) Professional Services.

7.1 Functional Requirements and Fit

During the information gathering process, the delivery consultant also has the opportunity to identify which of the
Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality is required by the customer. A list of the Microsoft Dynamics AX functionality is
included below.

7.1.1 General Foundation

Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Graphical user interface requirements

 Active Directory Integration
 Administration and Security Requirements
 Enterprise Portal (EP) Requirements
 Document Management Requirements
 Reporting Requirements

7.1.2 Finance
Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Consolidation processes and needs

 Foreign Currencies involved
 General Ledger and Budgeting
 Bank and Cash Management
 Fixed Assets
 Financial Dimensions and their use
7.1.3 Trade
Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Sales and Marketing

 Intercompany Trade
 Pricing and Commissions
 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
 Trade and Sales / Purchasing Agreements
 Purchasing and Purchase Requisitioning
 Accounts Receivable
 Accounts Payable

7.1.4 Inventory and Logistics

Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Items and Item Types

 Product Costing
 Inventory Model and Dimension Groups
 Warehouses and Locations
 Remote Warehouse Replenishment (i.e. Safety Stocks and / or Maximums)
 Inventory Transfers between Sites and Warehouses
 Inventory Receipts
 Order Fulfillment

7.1.5 Production
Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Bills of Material (BOM)

 Routings and Resources (i.e. Work Centers)
 Lean and / or Process Manufacturing
 Shop Floor Control and Reporting

7.1.6 Planning and Scheduling

Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Sales Forecasting and Seasonality Indices

 Forecast Consumption and Reduction principles
 Master Planning (i.e. Forecasting and MRP)
 Coverage Groups (i.e. Order Policies and Order Quantity Modifiers)
 Capacity Planning and Scheduling
7.1.7 Projects
Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Project types and groups

 Project costing and pricing
 Fixed fee projects and estimation models
 Project validations

7.1.8 Human Resources

Sample Functionality may include the following:

 Organization Structure
 Skills, Certifications and Competencies
 Recruitment Processes
 Performance Evaluations
 Time and Attendance Management and Reporting

7.1.9 Other Modules

Other modules may include the following:

 ISV Solution Add-on #1,

 ISV Solution Add-on #2 (as needed)

7.2 Integration and Interfaces

During this workshop the delivery consultant will have a chance to interview and gather requirements for systems
integration with:

 External systems

 Legacy systems

 Customer’s Shop Floor Control tools

 Production or Plant level data gathering systems

 Portal-based systems

 Integration with other Microsoft products such as:

 SQL Server 2005

 Microsoft Office

 Microsoft .NET

 Microsoft Exchange
7.3 Data Migration
The scope of data migration, as defined during the kickoff meeting, is reviewed. This review provides a starting point
for the Delivery Consultant, Key User and IT team members to identify data migration requirements. This exercise
also provides visibility into the customer’s current master data and transaction volumes, and should include an
overall assessment of the data cleansing and updating that is generally required before data migration can occur.

7.4 Quality and Testing

The Quality and Testing Review is determined by the scope defined during the kickoff meeting. This review provides
a starting point for the Delivery Consultant, Key User and IT team members to identify the Quality and Testing
standards and requirements.

7.5 Technical Assessment

The focus of the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement is to gather Business and IT requirements. Limited time is
allotted to analyze the client’s technical environment. Therefore, the analysis in this area should be considered as
only a high-level pass.

7.5.1 Infrastructure Inventory

The intent here is to help the delivery consultant discover as many details as possible about the current
environment. Once infrastructure data have been collected, the delivery consultant will have a solid understanding
of all the relevant dependencies. This Inventory will provide crucial data points to help the consultant perform the
gap analysis and make his recommendations.

Due to limited time dedicated to the interviewing process, make sure all areas are covered before you look into the
details. All relevant dependencies must be considered, and only if time is allowed to focus on areas that need more
attention. Focus areas will differ between customers, but typically involve storage, network, and directory services.

7.5.1.1 Environments
One of the first steps is to determine the number of environments that need to be assessed. These can include test,
development, pre-production, and production environments.

To gauge the operational maturity of the customer, it is important to understand if the customer has more than just
a production environment and if so, how code changes are migrated from the development and test environments
to production.

7.5.1.2 Network Infrastructure and Services

Identify the network infrastructure and services.

7.5.1.3 Hardware
The following information should be captured for each discrete system:

Identify core inventory information about the servers. Key components, including version and revision levels are important
when determining applicability and supportability in complex configurations.

Ensure that the complete configuration is listed on the Windows Hardware Compatibility List (WHCL) at
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx
Focus should be on the current and planned future company standards, as well as a limited number of representative servers
(typically five to six servers from each category) that the customer identifies as being troublesome. This will provide some
insight into the customer’s pain points.

If the customer does not have this information available beforehand, do not spend too much time collecting it during
this phase.

The most important parts of this inventory are whether or not the systems are on the WHCL and how the hardware
is used by the operating system, such as the settings for the boot.ini file.

7.5.1.4 Storage
Identify the storage components.

7.5.1.5 Directory Services

Identify the Directory Services configuration and setup.

7.5.1.6 Monitoring
If the customer wants to run a high-performance Microsoft environment, it is important to understand the health of
the systems. Discover whether the customer is using Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2000/2005 and, if not,
the reasons for that decision.

7.5.1.7 Maintenance
A detailed inventory of this area is the responsibility of the operations consultant. However, make sure to perform
an overview of the operational maturity of the customer to identify any barriers to implementing the desired
solution.

7.5.1.8 Hygiene
Throughout the interviewing process, it is expected the delivery consultant will take notes that will be used as inputs
for the final report.
7.5.2 Customer Pain Areas
Collecting the customer’s pain points should be done through an interview with the person responsible at the
customer’s operation. The goal of the interview process is to allow the customer to clearly communicate key areas
that cause issues within the organization. These essentially fall into two categories: undesired behavior that is
occurring; or desirable behavior that is not. The result of this interview will be a prioritized list of issues based on the
customer’s ranking by importance or impact. The customer’s background information should be collected prior to
engaging with the customer. Based on the customer’s pain points, the consultant should try to categorize the list
into business requirements and underlying issues, which can be converted to requirements for the new solution.
Technical and operational assessments will help determine the underlying causes of the issues.

7.5.2.1 General
The focus is on computing, support equipment, and services. Throughout the interviewing process, it is expected the
delivery consultant will take notes that will be used as inputs for the final report.

7.5.2.2 Availability
The basic availability focus means the servers are up and in a mode that offers acceptable service to the end users.

7.5.2.3 System Performance

The basic “is it running well?” focus, checks whether the servers are performing as expected. Take note of any
documentation that defines how running well matches with their Service Level Agreements (SLA). The overall
connection between SLAs and performance is a link that the operations consultant should be making in the
interviews. Based on the responses here, he should confirm that this link has been established.

7.5.2.4 Storage
The basic “is it running well?” focus means the storage is performing as expected.

7.5.2.5 Disaster Recovery

The focus is on understanding the customer’s maturity in the Disaster Recovery (DR) area. Use any additional space
to make notes about the Disaster Recovery environment.

7.5.2.6 Third-Party Components

The focus is on understanding any third-party components that affect the environment. Use any additional space to
make notes about third-party applications after obtaining answers.

7.5.2.7 Additional Issues or Concerns

This is the opportunity to allow the customer to freely identify issues or needs not expressly covered in previous
sections.

7.5.3 Requirements
This section helps the consultant document the customer’s technical requirements as they relate to this
engagement.
8 BUSINESS PROCESS WORKSHOPS
Business Process Workshops are conducted halfway through the engagement to present and discuss current findings
with the customer and to review the business processes that are considered within the scope of this engagement.

The length of the various workshops can be from a few days to a few weeks depending on the scope of the
engagement and the number of business processes that are analyzed.

The onsite team may cover the following topics in the Business Process Workshops:

 Demonstration of relevant components of Dynamics AX Functionality

 A walkthrough of the business process flow charts, within the scope of the engagement, and a discussion
of how Dynamics AX would work within those business processes

 A review of the business requirements to determine how they will be addressed in Dynamics AX

 Prioritization of the requirements identified before and during the workshops

Business Process Workshops provide a good way of validating the requirements information collected during the
Information Gathering Phase.
9 FINDINGS AND REVIEW
After the Information Gathering Phase of the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement is complete, the delivery
consultant will have number of reports, tools, outputs, and interview documents that will be used as inputs for the
final report.

The consultant should use the results gathered throughout the engagement to create a prioritized list of findings and
recommendations.

9.1 Fit Gap Worksheet

Using the inputs obtained during the Information Gathering Phase, the onsite team constructs the Fit Gap
Worksheet. The following steps may be followed:

 Construct the worksheet using the Sure Step Fit Gap Worksheet tool

 Review the Fit Gap Worksheet with the various Stakeholders

 Finalize the Fit Gap Worksheet by:

 Calculating the Degree of Fit

 Completing a High-Level Development Estimate

9.2 Solution Blueprint Report

Following the completion of the Fit Gap Worksheet, the onsite team can determine the Solution Blueprint and the
design of the overall proposed solution. Sure Step’s “Fit Gap Solution Blueprint Template” document can be used for
this effort.

9.3 Customer Review

Once the Solution Blueprint report has been created, the delivery consultant should schedule a review meeting with
the customer. The delivery consultant should address all objectives agreed upon at the beginning of the Fit Gap &
Solution Blueprint engagement.
10 CLOSEOUT MEETING
At the end of the engagement there is a closeout meeting to complete the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint project. The
closeout meeting is the final activity performed as part the engagement. The findings for the engagement are
presented to the customer and recommendations are delivered.

It is also provides an opportunity to propose any follow-on engagements that may have been identified during this
offering.

Topics related to the closeout meeting are:

 Meet and discuss:

 Results to date

 Closeout / finding and recommendations presentation which will include a

 Discussion of the overall “Degree of Fit”

 Analysis of the major items in terms of configuration and customization

 Data Migration Requirements

 Integration Requirements

 Relate findings to original objectives and requirements

 Discuss the next steps (i.e. roadmap)

 Determine customer satisfaction

 Close the engagement

Note Make sure you identify any possible –on engagements for inclusion in the Next Steps section of the
presentation.

The Closeout Meeting is an opportunity to deliver all the documentation and reports that resulted from the
engagement:

 Fit Gap Worksheet

 Sure Step Solution Blueprint Report

 AX Fit Gap Solution Blueprint Close Out Presentation

 Closeout Meeting Report

11 EFFORT ESTIMATE – WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
This section contains a detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement.

Fit Gap and Solution Blueprint Activity Time Estimate (Hrs) Comments
Gather and Review Functional Documentation 8 All requisite documentation to be
collected prior to project start
Gather and Review Technical Documentation 8 All requisite documentation to be
collected prior to project start
Review of Legacy Applications 8 Customer to provide assistance in
doing functional walkthrough of
legacy applications
Collate all Functional Requirements 16
Construct Fit Gap Worksheet 8
Interview IT and business leadership and review
the Functional Requirements 8
Conduct Business Process Workshops 16
Requirements will be prioritized into
phases with high-level development/
Finalize Fit Gap, calculated Degree of Fit (DOF) configuration time associated with
and complete Development Estimate 16 each activity
Solution Blueprint review
requirements at a high-level, talks
about the conceptual and logical
architecture of the solution
Determine Solution Blue Print and overall proposed, major development
proposed Solution Design and Write Report 16 activities and any add-ons required
Review with Management Team and incorporate
feedback 4
Engagement Management 4
Contingency 8
Total 120
12 CONCLUSION
The Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint engagement represents an important solution offering to the customer.

This delivery guide does not intend to address specific issues and requirements regarding the solution, but only to
provide guidance to the delivery consultant team during the process of conducting and completing a successful
engagement.
13 APPENDICES
13.1 Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint Process Flow
The process flow to be used to deliver the Fit Gap & Solution Blueprint is depicted in the diagram below:
14 REFERENCES
14.1 Links
Additional links are provided in this section for training and readiness resources. Use this as a resource for
developing your personal learning plan as necessary.

 Microsoft Dynamics – http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/default.mspx - Information on Microsoft

Dynamics.
 Microsoft Dynamics AX – http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax/default.mspx - Specific information on
Microsoft Dynamics AX.
 Microsoft Dynamics AX Customer Testimonials –
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax/product/customerstories.mspx - Microsoft Dynamics AX
customer testimonials.