There is a saying in audio recording which has become a bit of a cliched pun:

“We’ll fix it in the mix.”

If anyone has ever spent time in a recording studio you have probably heard this. The advent of digital music production has made it much easier to fix mistakes during the mixing/editing process, making it arguable to skip another take and “fix it in the mix”. As a musical hobbyist, I have been part of several late night sessions where that term was thrown around jokingly for mistakes that clearly should be corrected through another take versus trying to edit them later. And after the chuckling subsides, we drag ourselves out of the control room, pick up our respective instruments and have at it one more time…

As I am sure every industry has its own similar term to reference work that is pushed off later that should probably be addressed now, there is a common saying I hear on software projects:

“It’s a training issue.”

This saying often refers to usability issues that are reported as Change Requests. For various reasons these Change Requests are not addressed as software changes but instead “Training Points” for the users to modify their behavior. The negative slant is this implies it’s OK to ask a user to change their behavior, rather than change the software to meet their “needs”.

While this thinking holds merit when custom developing an application, I disagree in terms of a customizable multi-tenant software like salesforce.com that is leveraged by the masses. Let’s look at the Microsoft Office suite of products. MS Office changed the way business works. And it didn’t do it by providing a unique experience for every type of industry and client. It dictated a set of best practices (right or wrong) that can be leveraged across the globe regardless of industry or department. While new features may not have always been intuitive, businesses realized there is a significant cost savings to not creating their own version of a word processor or spreadsheet application, or presentation maker. Rather, they should make the investment to learn how to leverage one that was created for the masses. One could argue that organizations often bettered their processes due to pre-designed functionality that was available to them that they may have not considered applicable to their work or industry.

The difference between Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office is that Office is a product, while Salesforce is a platform with product offerings. In addition to marketing, salesforce automation and customer service and support, the platform can be leveraged to apply a rich set of features and functionality to other areas of the business (recruiting, employee development, operations, etc…). You can custom configure and even custom develop on the platform to create unique applications.

One of the areas we work with clients is helping them navigate the myriad of choices they have when designing applications on this platform. When is it ok to “customize” and when should one leverage what is already available but only requires simple configuration? Here is where the rubber meets the road. Working on this platform, I have seen many clients realize the benefits of modifying their process or behaviors for enhanced visibility, streamlined work streams, or improved collaboration. Salesforce’s native page layout editor often accelerates design decision making, creates a repeatable, familiar interface, and introduces visual tools that may not have been utilized before and would not have been requested by the client. While change can be painful, the benefits can often outweigh the investments.

For this reason, businesses should always make sure they are making the proper investment in Training and organizational Change Management. Regardless of the size of your organization, Training and Change Management can consume a significant portion of any software budget, and that percentage only increases on a platform that reduces the amount of development time needed.

So next time you hear “it’s a training issue” on your salesforce.com project, try not to immediately cringe, chuckle or push back. It may very well be an opportunity to improve…and an appropriate time to “fix it in the mix.”

 

And Why Not? 

What more noble cause is there to be leading your company in? Salesforce.com (SFDC) has changed the way people and companies interact with software. The Salesforce.com platform is not just software hosted in the cloud, but has become a platform for companies and individuals to design their own software that integrates with their core CRM quickly and cost effectively. 

Need a place to track expenses against your prospects and clients?
Salesforce. 

Want to monitor your office technology assets?
Salesforce. 

Need to track order fulfillment?
Salesforce! 

Why Has This Platform Been So Successful? 

The lack of need to manage hardware and scalability coupled with the highly intuitive Admin GUI has empowered business people to meet their own needs without constant dependency on technical resources. Which me brings me to my next point.  

Salesforce is Not Difficult to Administer

Oh my gosh! He said it! Shhh! Don't tell anyone!

That's right, it's not difficult to setup and make changes to your SFDC environment thanks to SFDC's "declarative" configuration wizard. And while certified Admins are scarce right now, that won't be the case forever as it does not require programming experience to become one. Then if becoming an SFDC Admin is so easy and popular right now, how does one differentiate themselves in an ecosystem that is growing leaps and bounds and may be as saturated as .Net developers in a couple years?

Simple. Let's look back at why SFDC took off in the first place. It targeted business people with small departmental budgets and showed them they could deploy their own system without taking a programming class, or requiring a cap ex request. Why is this important? Because thebusiness knows what they want when they want it. When the business has to go through an exhaustive process to get it, it gets frustrated, loses interest or worse, ends up with a very expensive system that does not meet its needs nor grow with change. 

Make Yourself Valuable

I have an uncle who once told me "the people who know how will always work for the people who know why".

Throughout my career these words have echoed in my mind. If you were one of the first adopters of SFDC, it answered a need you already knew you had. Understanding how to configure the tool was the next step to meet that need. If you are new to SFDC but not technology, or you are just starting your career out of school, then you may be tempted to immerse yourself in the features of the platform, learning as much as you can and building your list of certifications. And while this is empowering, it is not valuable to employers…on its own. 

What is valuable is knowing their business. Know their competitors. Understand the market landscape. Talk with the business and spend time with them understanding their jobs, not just the mechanics, but also the objectives. What are they measured by? What market forces are they planning for? What is their short term/long term vision for the platform?

Then, apply the knowledge you have gained of the platform, and how other SFDC clients use the system, to guide the business in its use of SFDC as a tool to meet those needs. Understand their requirements and challenge things they ask for. Ask why they want that field, or that workflow, or that validation rule. Offer alternative solutions or thinking. Leverage the platform to facilitate improvements to their process. Leverage your business acumen to consult them on ways to improve their use of technology, not migrate flawed methods to a new technology.

A prominent client in the insurance industry recently posed a question. They asked "how can we share an Account record with someone, but not give them access to all the Contact records for that Account?" As a capable Admin, I might be tempted to start working on a solution to their request, but I stopped myself. Instead, I inquired why they would want to do this in the first place. It's counter intuitive to the goals and objectives of this platform they shared with me when we first started working together, which was to foster collaboration and cross-selling. Removing visibility to key contacts at an Account record would certainly not foster collaboration and cross-selling. Spending time and money on determining a way to meet their request, while potentially showing off my admin skills, would only jeopardize their strategy for the system's usage.

How and Why

While so many industries are waiting out the current economic environment, Cloud Computing is growing exponentially. Admins and Developers are in high demand. Salesforce consultants are needed even more. Because despite what is offered by the latest technology trends, we should be stewards of best practices and innovative thinking. We should not be afraid to ask questions. We should not be afraid to disrupt current thought or culture. While not all of our suggestions will be embraced, it is our responsibility to make sure they are heard. For these behaviors will make you distinguished in your career.

Because while it is good to know how, we should always be striving to know why.