With adoption rates of Power Platform skyrocketing, so do the critical questions of groups (Security, Compliance, IT, Legal) within the organization :
- “How do we limit our exposure to data leaks?”
- “How do we manage use?”
- “How do we get insights into what people are building and subsequently utilizing?”
- “Have we approved the connections to data, systems, or other resources?”
That is where the CoE comes in. “A Center of Excellence (CoE) in an organization drives innovation and improvement and brings together like-minded people with similar business goals to share knowledge and success, while at the same time providing standards, consistency, and governance to the organization.”
As the business starts to ask these questions, there is a very simple starting point: the CoE starter kit. As the name indicates, this kit is an entry point allowing your organization to build and adapt to your own unique needs. Contained within are tools to help build, automate, and provide analytics to resources across the tenant environments. The focus of the COE kit is not to stifle the innovation but to put realistic guard rails in place to allow your maker’s creativity to flourish while allowing you to gather valuable insights.
When establishing a center of excellence, there are several key phases, some of which have associated components. Provided by Microsoft:
- This is the first phase, and in the same way any other project kicks off, it allows an organization to define its goals and expectations.
- The second phase is to install and configure the COE kit. Once installed, you can begin to understand the Power Platform adoption and metrics associated with your tenant.
- The third is to establish the organizational policies, procedures, and compliance needs to fit your needs.
- The fourth is to install & utilize the Nurture components, which will help drive Non-IT staff’s adoption into “Makers.”
- Last but definitely not least, iterate. The COE start kit is not just an install that you complete; then wash your hands of it. It is an evolving toolset that over time will grow as your organizations adoption and needs do.
In our upcoming series on Power Platform CoE, we will cover each portion of the CoE for Power Platform and provide best practice recommendations. As always, if you have any questions or have any requests on future topics to cover, don’t hesitate to reach out; our team would love to speak with you.
For more information on the CoE or COE Start Kit, I’ve provided reference materials below:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/starter-kit
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/guidance/coe/overview
Introducing the PowerApps Center of Excellence Starter Kit | Microsoft Power Apps
