Hello!!
I'm Sharon. 🤗
I'm a dual Microsoft BizApps MVP in Customer Experience and Customer Service. An expert Microsoft Certified Solution Architect for the Dynamics 365 Business Applications, who's led the delivery and implementation of several tailored and value-oriented solutions to meet diverse global and national business requirements, that lead to positive customer outcomes.
15x Microsoft Certified and Success by Design Accredited, I use its principles that blend strategic design, rigorous gap analysis, and the pursuit of excellence in service delivery, to craft pathways to success for customers.
As founder of the Mentorig Hub, one of the Microsoft Women In Power (Platform) Mentorship Program Leads, and a regular Microsoft Community contributor through my HeuristicDev blog posts and public speaking, I have a 'thing' for learning, a thirst for knowledge, and a desire for sharing both to uplift and empower all.
Before all of this, though, I worked for 30 years in social housing, starting as a front line housing officer, before progressing to work in housing policy and strategy, including with regional government.
Moving into 'special projects', me and my small team would go into problem areas of our organization, carry out discovery, and then work with that area to reinvigorate business processes, improve performance, update communication strategies and/or introduce new more collaborative ways of working.
In our last project before I joined the Solution Architecture and Design team to deliver its Fit for the Future project, we successfully brought in a 'best of breed' IT solution for delivering residents' Service Charges, along with a transformative way of communicating their annual Estimated and Actual Charges.
These projects taught me the valuable lesson that yes, the right technology is important; but it's your communication strategies, both internal and external and at every different level, that will make or break your successful delivery and the adoption of the technology. That, in turn, drives the benefits and return on investment not only to your Clients but to their customers too.
I wanted to share this snapshot of my career history with you so you can see how it's possible to transition from a business background into technology, and the valuable knowledge and lived experiences you'll bring with you that people who've always worked in IT don't have.
Your ability to truly understand and empathize with your customers is an amazing superpower.
Never forget that. 🤗
So what's this site all about?
As I was going through this transformative journey, I started writing articles and posts to share what I'd learnt along the way. Insights. Thought Processes. Strategies. Techniques.
Then, as I began to specialize in the transformative journey the Microsoft Dynamics 365 first party apps have been going through, from legacy line of business applications to AI-first business processes, my content became more focused on sharing my expertise, both in writing and now as a global speaker.
So what's this site all about?
As I was going through this transformative journey, I started writing articles and posts to share what I'd learnt along the way. Insights. Thought Processes. Strategies. Techniques.
Then, as I began to specialize in the transformative journey the Microsoft Dynamics 365 first party apps have been going through, from legacy line of business applications to AI-first business processes, my content became more focused on sharing my expertise, both in writing and now as a global speaker.
And Why HeuristicDev?
The word 'Heuristic' comes from Greek "eurisco" meaning "to discover".
It provides an approach and strategy for selectively exploring a problem area along lines that have a high probability of success, but that aren't guaranteed to find an exact solution due to ambiguities or prohibitive costs.
Sound familiar? 🤔
Heuristic techniques give you methods to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution that might not necessarily be perfect or optimal, but nevertheless reach an immediate, short-term goal or approximation.
This is why the Heuristic approach has been at the core of the development of technological advances, with AI being the latest example.
- Trial and error = Proof of Concepts
- Learning from mistakes = Retrospectives
- Self-discovery = HeuristicDev