When we lead a conversation about cloud governance with salesforce.com customers, ‘prioritization’ is always one of the eight key elements we speak about. In fact, the crux of Salesforce’s flexibility is the need for real-time prioritization of all possible changes.
To help determine the priority of each project we like to use a four box ‘value vs. complexity’ diagram. High value, low complexity projects get first priority (box #1), while the low value, high complexity projects get put on the backlog (box #4). However, we’re just getting started here.
The conversation gets interesting when we start defining what ‘value’ and ‘complexity’ means for that customer—specifically, when change management is included as a complexity factor. Even if the enhancement is not complex to build (think point-and-click configuration), it might have a dramatic impact on the way end users interact with Salesforce.
I interviewed a CRM manager earlier this year on how she created a culture of IT-led innovation at her company. One lesson she shared: If the change for the end user is too dramatic, it can completely stall innovation.
Initially, the CRM manager’s team was releasing many simultaneous changes that impacted the daily workflows of end users. Her team had to pull back on what they were initially focused on—technical innovation—and instead spend time training frustrated end users after releases were considered complete.
Her company was already following best practices when it came to change management, so they had to decide between dedicating more resources to change management or modifying their approach to releases. They chose the latter.
By releasing smaller, more frequent changes to end-user workflows—as well as quick-tip sheets—they eliminated continual pauses for training. This decreased frustration among end users and gave her team more time to focus on innovation. Breaking up changes into smaller pieces did not impact business value, but it significantly reduced complexity. As a result, more high-value projects were prioritized and completed.
A couple of key takeaways from this approach to governance:
- Always include change management in the analysis of a project’s complexity
- Keep change management tied to each release, even if the two processes have different owners
Prioritization is only one key element of cloud governance—to learn about the other seven, and how to apply them to your company, view our infographic.
