In my 23+ years in the Salesforce ecosystem, I have seen projects have both great and rough landings. I saw similar outcomes when I was consulting with Robert Half, other Salesforce partners, and my own software company back in 1998.
Understanding why various outcomes exist has been a focus of my consulting career – I believe in offering key insights into how to avoid negative consulting partner experiences, as a project gone awry can lead to catastrophic levels of failure across many types of digital transformation projects.
In a 2021 Forbes article on the failure of technology projects, Steve Andriole mentions Clayton Christensen’s work on innovation. Christensen was a well-known business consultant and Harvard Business School professor who studied disruptive innovation:
“As I and others have reported, ERP projects routinely fail, and sometimes famously: the Gartner Group reports that 75% of ERP projects fail. Others report that CRM projects fail at nearly the same rate. Big data analytics projects also fail at an alarming rate. Clayton Christensen suggested that 95% of product innovation projects fail.
“Digital transformation fails 70% of the time: McKinsey reports that only 30% of digital transformation projects result in improved corporate performance. There’s failure data everywhere. Technology projects fail at an astounding rate at enormous cost to the companies – and executives – who support them.
“Perhaps the harshest finding is that “90% fail to deliver any measurable ROI.”
Given the ongoing duration and pervasive nature of this problem, one would expect to hear a lot more about why it happens and what to do about it – however, this is not the case.
To assist program managers, C-level executives, and other key decision-makers in the recruitment process, I would include three additional questions in your interview. The origin of project failure is not in technical competence, but rather the ignorance of intangible skills. I believe that the interview should start with this focus and the following three questions will zero in on this.
1. How Do You Coach and Mature Your Team Beyond Salesforce Certifications?
Any Salesforce partner you may work with probably has lots of certs and a program to increase the count, as their Partner Value Score and referral pipeline depend on them. However, certs alone are not likely to increase your project success rate.
In my research spanning direct case studies such as the FoxMeyer Drugs ERP project, and broader analysis papers by Standish Group, McKinsey, and CISQ (50,000+ projects), the overwhelming conclusion is that poor soft skills including lack of communication, ineffective leadership, and absent change management are the overwhelming causes of these failures.
Therefore, the partner or team you choose must have a program to model, measure, and mature these dimensions of their Salesforce professionals or they risk the same failures. Trailhead includes highlights of these skills around topics like Business Analysis or User Experience though the problems occur when the team is down in the weeds, under pressure, and being pushed by many competing priorities.
The resilience and execution required at this level are not covered in Trailhead, despite it being vital to success. If they do not have a program that addresses this skill set based on the complexity of your people, processes, and culture, then I would think twice before moving forward.
2. Can You Show Me Artifact Examples Used Within Your Projects?
I’ve worked with many Salesforce partners over the years and a phrase I have often heard is “only provide documentation the client specifically asks for”. The assumption here is that documentation is static and has little to no impact on the ongoing experience or outcome of the project.
Worse, documentation is often seen as a superfluous requirement to satisfy the angst of the stakeholder so you can gain approval (and often payment) for the next phase of the project. In this case, the artifacts are used as a simple means of validating where project management lands on the priority list.
Bosa Igbinoba, a tech consultant focused on the operational and management side of projects, highlights poor management impact in “The Cost of Project Failure – People, Processes and Technology”:
“A process is a series of actions or steps taken to achieve a particular goal. Effective process design considers the impact of implementation on staff and customers, the skills required to successfully implement the solution, the requirements needed, and a host of other behavioral, physiological, and professional considerations.
“The survey results for the 2020 Pulse of the Profession revealed that an average of 11.4% of investment is wasted due to poor project performance. Organizations that undervalue project management as a strategic competency for driving change report an average of 67% more of their projects failing outright”.
By asking to see specific artifact examples, you will expose whether the prospective partner or team leans toward the trivial or vital importance of effective collaboration and visibility. Their answer will tell you what you can expect in your own project.
This question will also reveal whether they believe project management is merely a software tool or a strategic competence in executing a repeatable method that will significantly de-risk your project wherever it may lead.
3. Can You Share Different Ways You Will Help Maximize My Team in This Project?
Every Salesforce project is an endeavor of mutual risk between the parties involved – the technology needs to function as promised, and the business needs to convey where they want to go and how to measure it. Then, the partner needs to have the skills to draw out everything else required to reach that finish line in a measurable way and within the constraints placed on the project. As challenges arise or if something isn’t possible, it needs to be clarified and then negotiated.
All of this requires an immense amount of communication skills; listening, writing, speaking, and interpreting. In the research I have seen, communication skills are both the common denominator of project failure and the most critical skill for success referenced by project management professionals globally.
In addition to the Project Manager, I would argue that all members of the project team need significant aptitude in the intangible abilities to convey intended meaning, recognize risks and valuable details within the numerous streams of information, and initiate and lead difficult yet vitally important conversations.
Page 10 of the 2023 PMI Pulse of the Profession states the impact of communication this way:
“Power skills – also known as interpersonal skills or soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, and collaborative leadership – are proving essential for project professionals. They are at the heart of leading successful teams, engaging stakeholders, and conquering challenges to the project plan. Technical skills enable project managers to chart the path from the start of a project to close, but power skills are how they bring the entire team along for the journey to execute a common vision.
In our survey, project professionals rated communication, problem-solving, collaborative leadership, and strategic thinking as the most critical power skills in helping them fulfill organizational objectives.”
This question on maximizing your team will reveal the approach, tactics, and priority they employ in mining, refining, and aligning key business elements from your team that are vital for a successful project that delivers the expected ROI and beyond.
The methods that a partner team employs are critical. The conversations required to gather this information often happen in semi-public settings. These conversations will be impacted by incumbent cultural and political challenges that create headwinds to open and transparent conversations.
Take the opinion of a sales manager everyone thinks is incompetent, or the silence of an office manager who likely knows the most. Every project manager, business analyst, architect, and team member in the meetings must have a strategy to manage these “people first” complexities, as I like to call them.
The conversation may also reveal whether partners are looking to lean on generic “best practices” or a template of prior experience in your industry rather than uncover the unique dimensions that create your unique value. This is all critical to your team’s adoption too.
Beyond this information gathering, there are additional aspects of collaboration, validation, and change management that also need to be raised though I need to wind up this article.
Summary
The three questions we discussed should help you focus on surfacing the culture of the partner over their technical competence. I certainly recognize the value of certifications as a means to measure an ingredient of aptitude, here are some that may help you with your technical professional development:
- Salesforce Certifications
- User Experience – Interaction Design from Nielsen Norman
- Competent Communicator from Toastmasters
- People First Method
- Additional non-Salesforce certifications
While these validations of skill are important, it is the intangible skills that have made a difference in my own career. The research my team and I have reviewed also reveals the vital role of these “people first” dimensions.
The required technical skills act as the oars in your project rowboat and can be supplemented without putting the project at risk. The three questions I have focused on above will help you inspect the hull of the rowboat which often remains underwater until it’s too late in your journey to overcome it by simply bailing water leaving your project sinking.
We certainly all want the success rate of Salesforce projects to improve so that more customer success drives innovation and growth on the platform. Going beyond the reality of mutual risk to the opportunities of mutual responsibility will help teams overcome the actual causes of project failure.
Try the questions out, and let me know if they added clarity and refined your future Salesforce partner and team selections toward greater project success. For a deeper dive into growing “people first” skills for your team, check out the Salesforce Trails and Trials podcast.
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