Goldilocks and the three bears highlight a risk in CRM - and this may be not quite what you expect!

Goldilocks was out walking in the forest when she finds a house.  She knocks at the door.  However, nobody answers.  Goldilocks is curious and pushes open the door.

On the kitchen table, there are three bowls of porridge.  Goldilocks is hungry, so she tries the porridge in one of the bowls.  It’s too hot, so she moves on and tries the next bowl.  This porridge is too cold.  Then she tries the third bowl, and this porridge is just the right.  Goldilocks eats the whole bowl.

In the living room, there are three chairs.  The first chair is too big, the second chair is too small, but the third is just the right size.  Goldilocks sits down and relaxes.  Unfortunately, the chair breaks.  Suddenly Goldilocks realises that she is very tired.  Goldilocks goes upstairs, where there are three beds.  The first bed is too hard, the second is too soft. But the third bed is perfect.  Goldilocks lies down and falls fast asleep.

Then the three bears arrive home.  They quickly realise that someone has been in their house – and has taken significant liberties.  Goldilocks is still fast asleep!

When Baby Bear realises where Goldilocks is, he shouts out in surprise, Goldilocks wakes up in a fright, runs downstairs, out of the house and into the forest.  She never returns to the bears’ house.

How does ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ relate to successful CRM?

In the story, Goldilocks enters the Bears’ house and tries all the porridge, all the chairs, and all the beds trying to find the one that suits.  En route she leaves behind significant damage.  This is what can happen when inadequately trained people try to make something work in CRM – either as users or as implementers doing customisation.  Like Goldilocks, if discovered, these people can leave and you have to clean up the mess.

What do you need to do to avoid this sort of mess in your CRM?

The obvious answer is not leave the door open, i.e. take care with the security of your CRM.  This is more than simply user names and passwords, but includes getting all of the security model correct.  The Microsoft Dynamics 365 security model enables you to manage who gets access to which data and which functionality.  Set up correctly, no-one needs to get access to more than they require to do their job.

Further to that, be aware of the risks and ensure that only trained and experienced people get .higher levels of access.  This of course, means that you need to be able to identify the inexperienced people.  This may be harder than it seems.  I have worked on many projects where damage is done and huge amounts of time wasted by untrained or inexperienced people.