Use business value plays

Measuring and communicating business value, including choosing the best methods and tools for success, focus on the app or solution level. You also need to consider the bigger picture of your adoption journey. Running specific initiatives can significantly boost adoption by demonstrating how Power Platform generates business value. But how do you measure and communicate the overall value of these initiatives? This is where value plays come in.

What are value plays?

Value plays are strategic initiatives designed to maximize the value delivered by Power Platform. They help you identify high-impact opportunities and execute them effectively to achieve significant outcomes.

Here's how to apply value plays:

1. Identify high-impact use cases: Look for scenarios where Power Platform can address critical business challenges or opportunities. These use cases should have the potential to deliver substantial benefits, such as improving efficiency, enhancing customer satisfaction, or driving innovation.

2. Define clear objectives and metrics: Establish specific goals for each value play and identify the metrics to use to measure success. Include tangible metrics like cost savings and time efficiency, and intangible metrics like stakeholder alignment and user satisfaction.

3. Execute and iterate: Implement the value plays by developing and deploying solutions using Power Platform. Continuously gather feedback and iterate on the solution to ensure it meets the defined objectives and delivers the expected value.

4. Measure and communicate results: Collect data to measure the success of the value plays. Use tools like Power BI to analyze and visualize the results. Communicate the outcomes to stakeholders through clear and concise reports, including highlight both the tangible and intangible benefits achieved.

Monitor and measure value

At a high level, you also need to monitor key value measures or key results to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) at the Power Platform level. This process involves tracking metrics that reflect the overall impact of Power Platform on your organization, such as:

• Adoption rates: Measure how widely Power Platform is being used across the organization.
• Efficiency gains: Track improvements in process efficiency and productivity.
• Cost savings: Calculate the financial benefits of using Power Platform compared to traditional development methods.
• Innovation: Assess how Power Platform is enabling new innovations and business opportunities.

By focusing on these high-level measures, you can provide a comprehensive view of the value generated by Power Platform, support your strategic goals, and demonstrate ROI effectively. Learn more in Develop a vision for adopting Microsoft Power Platform.

Tips for creating effective value plays

Each value play is designed to be:

• Strategic: Begin with value plays that are closely aligned with your business objectives. This approach helps ensure that the initiatives you undertake contribute directly to your strategic goals and deliver meaningful outcomes.

• Repeatable: Value measurement is an ongoing process, not a one-time activity. Each value play should focus on how Power Platform continuously enhances existing business processes and programs, creating a sustainable approach to value generation.

• Actionable: The philosophy behind value plays is to avoid measuring everything the same way. Instead, focus on measuring what matters and use the insights to drive actionable improvements.

Key components

A value play consists of the following key components:

• Source of value: Identify where Power Platform can provide unique value. For example, through its low-code capabilities, integration features, or ability to rapidly prototype and deploy solutions.

• The play (key activities): Outline the specific activities to undertake as part of the value plays. Your key activities include identifying use cases, developing prototypes, and gathering feedback.

• Objectives: Define what you aim to achieve with the value plays. Your objectives might include improving efficiency, enhancing customer satisfaction, or driving innovation.

• Audience: Determine who needs to be informed about the value plays. Your audience might include stakeholders such as business leaders, IT teams, and end-users.

• Call to action: Specify what actions should be taken based on the insights gained from the value plays. The call to action might involve scaling successful prototypes, making process improvements, or reallocating resources.

• Value proposition:

  • Strategic alignment: Explain how the value plays supports the broader business goals to ensure the initiative is recognized as a strategic priority.
  • Tangibles and intangibles: Identify both the tangible and intangible benefits to measure. Tangible benefits might include cost savings and time efficiency, while intangible benefits involve improved stakeholder alignment and user satisfaction.

• Tips for new players: Provide guidance on key aspects to get right when implementing value plays. This guidance might involve selecting the right use cases, engaging stakeholders early, and iterating based on feedback.

Example value plays

The following value plays aren't intended as an exhaustive list but rather a starting point for creating a simple, repeatable approach to measure and demonstrate business value. As your use of Power Platform grows and matures, your value plays will become more sophisticated and enable you to capture and communicate even greater value.

• The Innovation Accelerator: The Power Platform Innovation Accelerator focuses on Power Platform's ability to co-design, test, deploy, and iterate faster than other development methods.
• The Success Story: Share insightful solution case studies and maker success stories that bring to life the day-to-day value of Power Platform and inspire increased adoption.
• The Graduate Program: Help Graduate (or Vacation) Program participants to jump-start their career through valuable, real-world skills in developing Power Platform solutions.
• The Innovation Backlog: The Power Platform Innovation Backlog enables the business to capture ideas and describe process pain points, so that developers can prioritize high-value work.
• The Paper-to-Power-App: Power Platform lets you capture data faster and with greater accuracy, and do more with the data you gather.
• The Cream of the Crop: Identify and calculate ROI for your top apps and flows based on time and cost savings achieved (so you don't have to try to measure everything).
• The Finance "Excelerator:" Challenge the Finance department to identify and replace routine, manual, spreadsheet-based data collection processes with Power Platform solutions.
• The Insight Sharer: Ensure project lessons are actually learned with a Power Platform solution that automatically shares insights across teams and projects.
• The Stakeholder Aligner: Co-design and rapid ideation in Power Platform support stakeholder buy-in, as stakeholders see their ideas come to life, and de-risk projects through shared understanding of requirements.
• The Reuse, Buy, Build reverse value play: Challenge the avoid custom development mindset by proving the sustained value and supportability of Power Platform solutions.

Next step

Getting executive sponsorship and executive leadership buy-in is one of the most important aspects of successful Power Platform adoption, especially in large organizations. Learn how to identify an executive leader to sponsor your project and understand the role and activities of an executive sponsor.