Microsoft Dynamics AX to D365 Upgrades: The Constrained Enterprise Conundrum

While researching a long forgotten arcane technical detail for an ongoing Microsoft Dynamics AX to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (D365FO) project I came across the following upgrade graphic:

Holy sheet rock, Robin!

I sure wish I had seen this earlier. The client would have appreciated it as well. We could have replaced our 500+ line project plan and daily project update calls, had we only known about this plan!

Considering that the project I was working on at this time was a fairly straightforward financials upgrade with limited customizations and integrations, my mind flashed to the challenges faced by other implementations, those with enterprise-grade complexity including many or all of the following issues:

• A broad functional footprint, distribution and manufacturing being good examples.
• Heavily customized code impacting critical business processes.
• Multiple sites, languages, currencies, etc.
• Intricate and often fragile integrations with legacy systems and antiquated hardware.
• Large user numbers.

The typical AX implementation with these characteristics falls into the middle of the following company size spectrum: