Scrum and Salesforce

I have just read a blog post where someone talks about 90 days as really short implementation time in contratst with a typical 18 to 24 month implementation for a CRM system. Some implementations can be even shorter. So for users who are happy with the standard Salesforce.com B2B CRM model I have undertaken a 5 to 10 days implementation engagement including end user training.

So what has this to do with Scrum? Well firstly Salesforce.com itself uses Scrum to manage all its own product development and they have seen a 60% productivity improvement as a result.

The difference between Scrum and other project management methodologies is that it emphasises managing implemented system functionality against a fixed time period whereas an approach such as Prince 2 focusses on managing time against a fixed functionality scope.

The challenge that both approaches face is that project estimation is uncertain but in the first case you get a fixed price but a risk that not all the functionality will be implemented. In the second case you might get all the functionality but at the risk of cost overrun.

The benefit of using Scrum is that you can decide at the end of the fixed period whether the return that you would get from the missing functionality is worth the extra cost. The reason that Salesforce.com makes this possible is that unlike other types of software infrastructure (particularly on premise databases) you will have a working system. It may not do everything but it will function and you can then evaluate it against the real world requirements.

Its not just technology

A lot of the work that I do is helping people get started with Salesforce.com and we sometimes deliver this help as fixed time package of work. Now these work packages (QuickStarts) are pretty short engagements (3 to 5 days) and we ask the clients to do some pre-work so that they can get the maximum return on investment. This consists of some online training and completion of a questionnaire which outline their goals for the engagement.

You know what? A lot of the time it doesn't get done. People are so busy with their day to day work that when we turn up on site on the first day we have to spend the first half of the business process review going over stuff that they could have covered in the pre-work.

Well last week was different we turned up on site and not only had the clients staff done the training but they had started researching some third party apps from the App Exchange. "Hey this is great we can really get moving here" I thought even when they started quizzing us on some of the deeper aspects of the third party apps which quite frankly we had not used before.

Unfortunately after a while it became clear that they were complete techno junkies and had not thought very deeply about anything other than technology. The conversation degenerated into something similar to some of the patients consultations that my wife gets involved in. Occasionally she will get someone coming along to her GP surgery with a cold but they are convinced that they have the Ebola virus and will have printed out a sheaf of notes from the Internet which prove that they have all the symptons. When we probed a little we found we had a similar situation. Our potential clients had tried to use Salesforce but had loaded their data in to it in way that showed they had not understood the Salesforce.com object model. They also had no clear vision of the processes they wanted Salesforce.com to support. Even worse they could not grasp the importance of change management although they were concerned that taking staff away from front line operations for user training would negatively impact their productivity.

Sadly it all ended in tears. Their assessment of the value that we could bring to their project was based solely on our knowledge of technology specific to their situation and we could not convince them of the crucial importance of people and processes in their CRM deployment. I wish them well but my fear is this will join the statistics of failed CRM projects that didn't work because those in charge failed to adequately manage the change process.

Of course technology is important and one the key reasons we specialise on Salesforce.com is because it offers a superior technical advantages but the success of any CRM project depends on getting the people and process issues right. 5 rules that were presented by another Salesforce.com consultant (Apirio) at recent seminar that I was involved in provide a neat blueprint for CRM success:

• Lead from the top
• Get the requirements right
• Scope the business impact
• Invest in change management
• Plan for support