* For SharePoint 2007 and Dynamics CRM, anyway

As I’ve said more than a few times, SharePoint 2007 and Dynamics CRM have some interesting similarities and just as many important differences. Both have emerged as strategically important application development platforms, and I recommend a “right tool for the job” mindset when you’re trying to decide which one to use. Here’s a short article I wrote on Integrating Dynamics CRM 4 and SharePoint 2007, and here’s a link to an instructor-led training course I wrote for Microsoft on the same topic.

On important similarity has to do with the skills an organization will need to realize the potential business value of each application. Generally speaking, I like to characterize the skill sets like this:

• End-users – people who “live” in the applications every day and need to be productive in using the core feature sets.
• Installers – IT professionals who need to install, deploy, upgrade and maintain these applications, support users, and the like.
• Customizers – people who need to configure and customize the applications, but aren’t necessarily .NET developers and don’t necessarily write code.
• Developers – .NET/Visual Studio developers who need to extend the platforms and write custom applications.

My company (IMG – www.IMGinc.com ) provides consulting and learning solutions for SharePoint and Dynamics CRM. We’ve replaced the traditional open-enrollment one-size-fits-all public training schedule with something we think is better: training and mentoring customized to your requirements, delivered privately to your team, when and where you need it.

We’ve got a comprehensive curriculum for all the skills you need for both products – from end-users to advanced developers – and I encourage you to use the curriculum as a starting point to build just the skills you need. The following table lays this all out for each skill set and includes links to the detailed course outlines. I’ve also included the traditional instructor-led-training (ILT) course durations:

Our Delivery Model

Our delivery model bears little resemblance to traditional public training, so you should take the course timings in the table with more than a grain of salt! Our custom training and mentoring engagements are … well… custom, so while the timings give you a reasonable idea of how much learning content each course contains, they generally will not correspond to the actual calendar days of any particular engagement. Here are some of the most popular ways we customize our training and mentoring engagements:

• We work with you to determine the exact topics you need covered.
• We deliver a blended combination of live online and live in-person training and mentoring.
• We can use your data and examples to make the training more relevant.
• We provide ongoing support in the form of subscriptions to online classrooms with content, recordings and more.
• We combine our training and mentoring engagements with the delivery of custom solutions.

Basically, we can provide the assistance you need in installing, configuring or building custom solutions on SharePoint or Dynamics CRM, combined with the skills you need to be self-sufficient going forward. Whether your organization is an enterprise trying to realize the potential of these products or a Microsoft partner building a practice, I encourage you to contact me to discuss how we can make our skills-centric services work for you.

Regards,

Richard Knudson — richardk@imginc.com