Salesforce Project ManagementGenerally tasked with the logistics of making a project work, like budgeting and risk management.
Overview
While Scrum Masters are focused on making sure a project team is successful, project managers are generally tasked with the logistics of making a project work, like budgeting and risk management.
Effective project management is essential to ensure that Salesforce projects are delivered on time, within budget, and meet the expectations of stakeholders and end-users.
Project managers are professionals that organize a team to ensure projects are completed on time, within budget, and with their goals fulfilled. They are often tasked with leading meetings, creating schedules, managing budgets, liaising between the team and stakeholders, and managing risks.
Project Manager Responsibilities:
- Defining project scope and SMART goals
- Setting a budget and schedule. Staying on schedule
- Monitor Project Progress and Set Deadlines
- Managing project resources (including teams and workers)
- Maintaining consistent communication with stakeholders
- Creating a communication plan
- Assessing & Managing risk
For project managers, every day is different - you might be interviewing and hiring new talent, managing team meetings, reallocating resources to cover an unexpected expense, or updating stakeholders on the progress of the project.
Many project managers follow the “SMART” framework, one of the best practices to ensure that the goals are attainable. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. When this is implemented appropriately, one can measure real-time performance.
Essential Skills for Project Management
Leadership:
You’ll lead a team to achieve a goal.
Communication:
You’re often the first line of communication for team members, vendors, stakeholders, and customers
Organization:
The ability to prioritize and multitask will keep projects running smoothly.
Critical & Proactive Thinking:
Analyzing and evaluating a situation critically helps prevent issues before they happen.
Sense of Humor:
Approaching a project with a positive attitude can ease stress and energize your team.
Source: coursera.com - What Is a Project Manager? A Career Guide
coursera.com - 11 Key Project Management Skills
7 Crucial Steps in Effective Project Management for Salesforce Projects
Define Project Scope and Objectives -
This involves identifying the business requirements and the goals of the project. The project objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) to ensure they are feasible and aligned with the business goals. The project scope should be clearly defined and documented to avoid scope creep and ensure the project stays on track.
Use Case:
A retail company wants to implement Salesforce to improve customer engagement and increase sales revenue. They define the project scope as implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud to manage their sales pipeline, customer service, and marketing campaigns. The project objectives are to increase sales revenue by 20%, improve customer satisfaction by 10%, and reduce customer service response time by 50%.
Sample Project Plan:
Source: configero.com
Note:
Business Requirements defines what and why part of the business goals. It never offers or proposes solution.
These include high-level statements of goals, objectives, and needs. Business requirements do not include any details or specific features. They just state the problem and the business objective to be achieved such as
increased revenue/throughput/customer reach,
reduced expenses/errors,
improved customer service, etc.
Function Requirement defines the how part - 'How' system needs to operate to achieve a business goals. Proposes solution, system specifications, technical in nature.
Scrum Master vs. Project Manager
The fundamental difference between a Scrum Master and a project manager is in their focus. Project managers focus primarily on project outcome, including budget, timeline, resources, and communication between teams. Where a project manager focuses on the project, a Scrum Master focuses on the team, taking steps to ensure the team and individual team members achieve success.
Is a Scrum Master a Project Manager?
Yes and no. Scrum Masters practice a type of project management, and will need to have certain project management skills like communication and organizational skills. In this regard, they can be considered project managers. Many project manager job descriptions also ask for experience with Scrum.
However, the Scrum Master on a Scrum team does not necessarily need to be a formal project manager—though they often are. Scrum Masters can be product managers, or professionals with leadership experience from software development, design, or other fields relevant to the project.
Project managers are often tapped to be Scrum Masters on Scrum teams. But professionals who act solely as Scrum Masters tend to have higher salaries. This may be because Scrum is a specialized field of project management, and can require specific skill sets.
What is Project Tollgate
A tollgate in Lean Six Sigma project management is a checkpoint in which the project leader(s), sponsors, and stakeholders meet to review the completed phase of the project.
In the tollgate, you review the key deliverables and project outcomes, discuss challenges the team might be facing, and agree on how the project will move forward. The power of the project tollgate lies in its ability to keep teams working to achieve specific outcomes with the resources necessary to succeed. This data-driven approach that focuses on checkpoint metrics reduces the likelihood of projects failing or being rushed to completion.
Project leader should be prepared to concisely present the outcomes and key deliverables from the completed phase of their project. The tollgate is also an opportunity to ask for feedback, help, or direction where needed, be sure to incorporate this into the meeting agenda.
For project sponsors and stakeholders, this is your opportunity to provide constructive feedback and ensure that the project is aligning with the business objectives.
Two Ways to Visualize Project Progress
(1) Gantt Chart -
A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart used to illustrate a project’s schedule and related tasks or events during the project lifecycle.
This gives your team a visual overview of project information like your project schedule, upcoming milestones, and overall project timeline. Each horizontal bar within the chart represents a task, and the length of each bar represents the amount of time that step or task will take.
Source: asana.com
(2) Kanban Board -
Kanban boards are a visual system for organizing a project where each task or actionable piece of work is represented by a card. These cards are then arranged in one of several columns representing the stages of a project or process, the owner of the task, the priority of the work, or whatever system works best for your team. As each task or deliverable progresses, you move the card representing the task from column to column so you can easily see where in the process the task is.
Source: asana.com
Project Manager Performance Metrics to Track
Source: wrike.com
By using more granular project management metrics, you can objectively analyze what’s working (or isn’t) across projects. That’s why we’ve put together a list of performance metrics to track. Let’s dive in.
1. Cost Variance
Cost variance is the difference between your earned value (planned budget) and actual project costs.
How to measure it: Budgeted cost of work – Actual cost of work
2. Gross Profit Margin
Gross profit margin is a ratio indicating how much money your company made from a project in relation to how much it spent on the project.
How to measure it: (Revenue – Project expenses) ÷ (Revenue × 100)
3. Cycle Time
Cycle time is the length of time it takes to complete a task, sprint, or project.
How to measure it: End date – Start date = Cycle time
4. On-time Deliveries
When you measure on-time deliveries, you’re looking at the percentage of timely work delivered in comparison to work delivered past the original deadline.
How to measure it: % of on-time deliveries = (Tasks delivered on time ÷ Total number of tasks) × 100
5. Project Scope Creep
Project scope creep is measured as a percentage of change in the original scope of work.
How to measure it: (Unplanned work tasks ÷ Planned work tasks) × 100 = % of scope creep
6. Individual and Team Utilization Rates
Utilization rate is the percentage of team members’ time spent working in relation to their availability.
How to measure them: Individual utilization rate = (Total working hours ÷ Total hours available) × 100
Team utilization rate = (Total individual utilization rates ÷ Total number of employees) × 100
7. Client satisfaction
Client satisfaction is a numeric score indicating how happy or unhappy your client was with the project process and results.
How to measure it: Send a survey at the end of each project asking clients to rank their overall satisfaction on a scale of 1-5. To get more granular, include specific categories like “communication” or “deliverable quality.”
Source: Click here for additional details.
Key ways of measuring project management performance:
Schedule: Naturally, one of the first project management performance metrics you should review is the timeline. Were project tasks and milestones achieved on time, as determined in the planning phase? What about final project delivery? Was it completed on schedule? With the right task management tools in place, you can easily track timelines throughout the project lifecycle, and analyze them after project completion to determine exactly where things went off course.
Budget: Going over budget often due to poor planning. Maybe you forgot to account for a project element like design, materials, or testing. Whatever the reason, delivering a project within its initial budget is a critical metric of success.
Scope: A project's scope includes its stated goals and deliverables, as well as the individual tasks that are required to achieve these. Often, scope creep occurs as the project progresses, leading to budget overages and delayed delivery. This is why it's critical to clearly define project scope at the outset and ensure every team member and stakeholder understands its goals.
Productivity: Productivity defines the relationship between a project's inputs and its outputs. While this metric is useful at the organizational level, it can also be used from project to project to get a clear picture of team efficiency. Productivity defines the relationship between a project's inputs and its outputs. The goal is to get as many units of output as you can using the least amount of inputs possible.
Return on investment (ROI): ROI looks specifically at the value of a project's outcomes vs. the dollar amount spent to complete the project. ROI can be expressed as a mathematical equation. To calculate it, you must first assign a value to each benefit derived from the project. Common benefits include cost savings, improvements, increased output, or contribution to profit. Once you find these, use the formula ROI = (net benefits/costs) x 100 to calculate the project's return on investment.
Customer satisfaction: This metric assesses the quality of a product or service using customer survey data. Ideally, the service or product should serve its intended purpose and satisfy the real needs of customers. Tracking customer satisfaction metrics can monitor aspects like revenue generated, repeat purchase clients, lost clients, complaints, and customer survey results.
Actual cost: Actual cost reveals the total amount of money spent on a project calculated by adding up all the expenditures throughout its lifecycle.
Schedule variance: This metric considers the budgeted cost of work scheduled and work completed. It tells if the project is under budget or exceeding its budget. Learn how to calculate earned value by subtracting the budgeted cost of work completed from the budgeted cost of work scheduled. Negative schedule variance means that the project is running late.
Cost variance: This shows the discrepancy between the predicted budget and the actual costs within a specified period. A negative cost variance shows the project runs over budget, whereas if it's positive, it means the project is under budget.
Cost performance: This metric is also used to measure cost efficiency. It is calculated by dividing the value of tasks performed (earned value) to the actual costs incurred. Cost performance projection helps you to make more accurate budget estimates.
Source: Click here for additional details.
Project Management Dashboard (IT)
A IT project management dashboard is a data-driven platform that displays metrics, stats, and insights that are specific to a particular project or strategy by presenting a tailored mix of KPIs in one central location in order to benefit the project's performance.
Source: datapine.com
Reference:
Datapine.com - How To Create A Project Management Dashboard – Examples & Templates
Datapine.com - TOP 20 IT KPIs AND METRICS
Project vs. Program
A project represents a single, focused effort.
Program is a collection of projects that aim to achieve the same or similar enterprise objectives. Its a roll-up of related projects that need to come together to achieve a goal.
Projects are focused on delivering defined outputs; programs are focused on realizing benefits. As a program manager, one of the most important responsibilities is initiating projects to create the outputs required to achieve the program's objectives. The projects within a program may be separate, assigned to different teams, and managed by distinct project managers, but they all aim to achieve outcomes tied to the same strategic objective.
Source: simplilearn.com
Program Management -
The goal of program management is to enable strategic execution by organizing people and teams across departments to work together with a shared purpose. Effective program management balances and optimizes people and dollars across projects, enabling the enterprise to prioritize and fund the programs that drive the most value.
While project management is more concerned with specific project tasks and deadlines, program management is focused on strategic planning, continuous improvement, and value realization. Program management ensures sets of projects are better aligned to corporate strategies and resources are optimized across the organization with minimal conflicts that can cause delays or budget issues.
One of the most effective program management tools is roadmaps to translate vision into strategic plans. Roadmaps offer a visual way to define program timelines, milestones, and releases while giving managers the ability to justify decisions and communicate the plan across the organization.
Programs often have strategic business objectives that are transformational in nature and cross departments or business units. Program management is the translation of strategic objectives into measurable business outcomes, coupled with the integration of many related initiatives required for the outcome to be realized.
Project Management -
Project management is the discipline of using principles and procedures to manage a project from conception through delivery of an outcome, such as an application, event, product, or service.
Protfolio Management -
Is a way to bridge the gap between strategy and implementation. Instead of focusing on a particular project, portfolio management considers every project or potential project and its potential to achieve business goals. The objective of portfolio management is to effectively balance the implementation of change initiatives with the potential return on investment. It highlights questions such as:
Do I have the necessary resources and budgets to initiate a new project?
Are there other projects that can be modeled?
Are there any current projects that may interfere with this new project?
Do we need to adjust stakeholder expectations?
Does this project align with our enterprise objectives?
Effective portfolio management results in organizations being able to predict outcomes and plan for projects that will offer the best results. Portfolio management results in a singular strategic plan that drives transformation programs and facilitates the prioritization of decisions across technology, work, and resources.
Program Manager versus Project Manager versus Portfolio Manager -
Program managers lead the end-to-end charge of the cross-functional program, from shaping the approach to the delivery of the set of desired outcomes. Program managers often report to an Enterprise PMO, Strategic Planning Office, or line of business and have responsibility for managing strategic initiatives that span departments and business units.
Project Managers are responsible for Project scoping, scheduling, and approvals; Resource management; Budget management; Risk management; Status reporting to team members and stakeholders.
Portfolio manager is responsible for managing and leveraging the life cycle of investments, initiatives, programs, projects, and outcomes to optimally achieve enterprise goals and objectives.
Additional Reference:
PlanView.com - Project Management v/s Program Management v/s Portfolio Management
Portfolio Governance
Portfolio Governance is termed as the framework, functions, and processes that guide portfolio management activities to optimize investments and meet organizational strategic and operational goals.
It is responsible for decisions regarding resources (e.g., human, financial, material, equipment), and ensures alignment to the investment decisions and priorities while any significant organizational constraints are being considered. Portfolio governance provides the framework for making decisions, providing oversight, ensuring controls, and overseeing integration within the portfolio components.
Source: ppm.express
A Brief Introduction to Project Portfolio Governance
Additional Reference:
ppm.express - Portfolio Governance, Ensuring Alignment to Strategy, in a PMI way
Brightwork.com - A Brief Introduction to Project Portfolio Governance
RAID (Risks, Actions, Issues, Decisions) Log Management
RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Supportive, Consulted, Informed) Matrix
Salesforce Blueprinting
Blueprinting defines the scope, requirements, solution & architecture design for your initial Salesforce implementation, and provides a full accounting of the Salesforce capabilities required to enable your business.
Developing business and technical strategies, creating the Organizational Change Management (OCM) strategy to support each deployment location or BU, and defining the Salesforce capabilities that need to be enabled to ensure you get the ROI you are expecting. In short, develop a holistic approach that details each capability needed to achieve the unique business goals clients desire.
Reference:
Apexon.com - BLUEPRINTING: A WINNING STRATEGY
Salesforce Implmentation Playbook
The Playbook provides you with a roadmap and specific action steps for your Salesforce Sales Cloud/Service Cloud implementation.
The Playbook includes the following sheets:
Playbook Sheet -
The project playbook contains action steps with instructions for the key steps and a breakdown of functional components and features to be discussed for each of the Salesforce components Accounts & Contacts, Lead Management, Opportunity Management, Campaigns and Territory Management.
Project Timeline (Gantt Chart) -
The timeline sheet provides a high-level picture of the entire implementation, from project goal definition to go-live and closure. Activities are grouped into phases and sub-phases:
Project Initiation
Requirements & Design Phase -
a. Requirements Gathering
b. Development of User Stories
Implementation Phase
Salesforce Core Build
Migration Preparation
User Acceptance Testing
Training Preparation & Training
Go-Live
Post Go-Live Activities
Test Case Template -
User Permission Matrix -
Source: tacticalprojectmanager.com