The shift from Creator to Enabler

One of the most fulfilling moments in my Power Platform journey was watching a colleague - someone with no formal technical background - build a Power App to streamline a messy manual tracking process in their team. They didn’t ask for permission. They didn’t need to file a request with IT. They had an idea, opened the maker portal, and got to work.

And it worked.

That moment stayed with me. Not because the app was perfect (spoiler: it wasn’t), but because they had the power to act on their idea. They solved a real problem for their team. And they did it with confidence and creativity - something that, in the past, might have required weeks of back-and-forth with developers.

It made me realize: yes, the Power Platform helped me move faster and build smarter - but its biggest impact was in helping me help others.

If you come from a traditional development background like I (kind of) do, you’re trained to build things that are robust, secure, and scalable. That’s a good thing. But it can also slow down experimentation. We’ve all been in meetings where a good idea died on the table because it sounded “too complex” or “not worth the dev time.”

The Power Platform shifts that conversation.

It allows you to say, “Let’s just try it.” It gives space for imperfect solutions to be tested, improved, and evolved. That’s how innovation actually happens - not in a five-month project plan, but in a one-day proof of concept built by someone who was tired of updating spreadsheets manually.

Over the past year, I’ve found myself taking on more of a mentor role with Power Platform newcomers. And honestly? I love it. Helping someone connect a SharePoint list to a Power App for the first time, or showing them how to automate a process they thought they were stuck with - those are the moments that light me up.

The best part? They don’t need to become developers. They don’t need to write a single line of code. They just need a bit of guidance, a bit of encouragement, and the right tools.

And when they build something that solves a real pain point, the pride they feel is tangible. That’s culture change.

When more people in your organization feel empowered to solve problems, you build momentum. You create a culture where ideas don’t sit idle - they are tried out. Solutions don’t have to be perfect - they just need to move the needle.

I’ve seen this momentum build in organizations I’ve worked with. One person automates their team’s report distribution. Someone else builds a tracker for customer feedback. A manager creates a dashboard in Power BI to help visualize weekly trends. Suddenly, you’ve got dozens of micro-innovations happening in parallel - and they all add up.

That’s the true scale of the Power Platform.

It’s easy to talk about the Power Platform as a productivity tool - and yes, it absolutely is. But when I zoom out, I see something bigger. I see a platform that helps shift the culture of an organization.

From passive consumption of tools to active creation.

From waiting for someone else to fix it to fixing it yourself.

From “that’s not my job” to “I can do something about this.”

That’s the kind of transformation that sticks.

The Power Platform gave me the freedom to move faster and build smarter. But the real win? It helped me help others do the same.

Empowering people to create their own solutions doesn’t just solve problems - it changes the way people see themselves. They go from users to makers, from problem-noticers to problem-solvers.

And if you ask me, that’s where the real power lies.

So if you’re already building on the Power Platform – fantastic! But I challenge you to take it a step further. Who can you empower? Whose idea can you help make real?

Because when we all start building, the possibilities grow exponentially.