Application Consultant, Functional Consultant – the job title may different from one company to another, but whatever the title, the person doing this job around financial and ERP software is considered the middle man between the application and the technology, as well as the key role for driving adoption of new technology by the business.
DynamicsAX_AC
The application consultant could start his or her career after graduation from a university; the major could be business administration, finance, or information system if it covers business subjects.
Alternatively, the application consultant could start out working in other careers. Some people start out as an accountant, procurement agent, commercial agent, or even sales representative (like me). Personally, I do not consider it a career shift, I consider it advancing in the career path. In other words it is capitalizing on the previous experiences.
Traditionally, consulting skills are divided into two main areas: the Business Side, and the Technical Side. Then there is more general Soft Skills set that all application consultants need since they spend most of their time in business discussions, business cycles workshops, and training.
Here are some of the key skills a company should look for in an application consultant, broken down by business, technical, and soft skills:
Business Side
Technical Side
Have business knowledge in specific business domain (Vertical), or more than one business domain (Horizontal). Vertical business domain break down to sub verticals.
Retail business domain (Vertical), Fashion, food & beverage, grocery, and electronics are sub verticals.
Supply Chain Management (Horizontal) in Retail business domain and Construction business domain.
Understanding business units process, the over lapping between business units, and business process enchantments or business process re-engineering.
Understanding the difference between applications. (Client/Server, Web application)
Understanding application flow of information inside out, and application integration in order to map business process to application.
Application implementation life cycle. (Sales, Pre-Sales, Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment, Operation, Support )
Basic knowledge about Hardware and Software configuration, Network and infrastructure.
Application/Functional Consultant
Soft Skills
Communication skills: consultant spend most of his/er time in communication internally with peers, manager, and externally with customer. This communication oral and written in documents, emails, and reports.
Presentation skills: helps in presenting the application, or ideas to customer, conduct users training, and presenting the application to prospect customer.
Leadership skills: consultants lead meetings, workshops, training sessions, and experienced consultants may lead team.
Project Management skills: consultant should understand the areas of project management scope, time, quality, risk, and configuration management since the consultant may getting into Project Management position.
The application consultants have a very important role in implementation project since he/she is involved in implementation tasks and activities. Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step has defined the application consultant role during implementation phases. It is a long and broad list of tasks, and that range is what I believe keeps most application consultants motivated and satisfied with their jobs. The challenges are always changing and the career path offers many opportunities to develop new skills.
Here is the list per Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step:
Diagnostic
Prepare and conduct business process analysis
Set up application for Fit Gap Analysis
Conduct Fit Gap Analysis
Document and present results of diagnostic phase
Support license definition and service estimations for functional tasks
Analysis
Conduct Key User training
Prepare and conduct business requirements workshops
Set up application for Fit Gap Analysis
Conduct Fit Gap Analysis
Document and present results of analysis phase
Design
Create development design specifications
Create design documents for customer understanding and acceptance
Present documentation and application design to customer
System configurations
Conduct feature testing of standard and independent software vendor (ISV) solution functionality
Assist in the identification and creation of process test scenarios
Development
Assist with the preparation of training and other documentation
Conduct function testing with developer and customer
Deploy security roles
Assist in the creation of User Acceptance test scripts
Conduct data acceptance testing
Conduct process testing
Support End User training as defined in the project scope
Deployment
Conduct Key User training (in case of Rapid Implementation)
Create process and User Acceptance Test plan
Configure live environment
Conduct process and User Acceptance test together with the customer to ensure unctionality, configuration, and data are as expected
Support End User training as defined in the project scope
Operation
Go-live support
Resolve pending issues
Finalize documentation
Agile Preparation
Conduct Solution Overview
Conduct Key User Training
Prepare and conduct Business Requirements workshops
Set up application for Fit Gap Analysis
Conduct Fit Gap Analysis
Provide input to the creation of Solution Backlog and high-level estimation process
Release Planning
Agile Execution
Provide input to the Sprint Backlog creation
Attend Sprint Planning Meetings (visioning/planning meetings)
Attend Daily Sprint Cycle Meetings
Create development design specifications
System Configurations
Conduct feature testing of standard and ISV functionality
Assist in the identification and creation of process test scenarios
Assist in the generation of Daily Build
Assist in the process of Sprint testing
Attend the Sprint Technical preview sessions
Attend the Sprint Post Mortem sessions
Facebook user group: DynamicsArabia
This blog is also posted in MSDynamicsWorld.com Click Here
