Strategically align business goals with Salesforce capabilities using a project roadmap
A Salesforce project management roadmap is a strategic alignment of your business goals and your Salesforce org capabilities. More simply put, a project roadmap is a guide ensuring you are doing the right things, at the right time, to help your organization be wildly successful.
Now, that may sound like I am overselling a roadmap, but I promise you having a well-thought-out plan is key.
A Salesforce roadmap enables you to:
Build consensus.
Budget well.
Create transparency across your organization.
Make changes today with an understanding of what the future will bring.
Five steps to building a Salesforce project management roadmap
So how do you build a Salesforce project roadmap? CRM Science project managers work with businesses and organizations of many sizes to bring Salesforce dreams to fruition. These are the five steps that are most important when building a winning Salesforce project roadmap.
Step 1: Understand your organization’s strategic technology vision.
First, get your Salesforce dream-team together. This should be a cross-functional group of decision makers and those who have insight into your Salesforce org.
Your first goal with this team is to achieve shared understanding of your:
Goals
Challenges
Growth plans
Relative priorities
You want to discuss how these will impact each of your teams, and agree upon communication standards for the group by using effective communication strategies when discussing complex technical topics.
Step 2: Analyze the current state of your Salesforce org and technology systems.
Every Salesforce project roadmap needs a starting point. Reflect on what you have accomplished in the last year, and discuss current challenges and any current work in progress. This is a great time to talk about challenges expressed by users.
Analyzing challenges can take many forms, such as bug ticket reports, user surveys, or even water cooler conversations. But, it’s important to know what your end users think is important.
Document an analysis of your:
Current technology assets
Tools and CRM applications
Technology usage reports
Are there systems, apps, or programs you could be using in better ways or more often? Is your organization utilizing all of the technology tools available, and to what extent?