Hooray! You have finally deployed the project that you have been working on for months on end, time to move on and work on the next project that comes up.
But how successful was the project you have been working on? Have users been adopting the changes and has this impacted the business in a positive way?
In this blog, we will run through how to measure the success of your projects so that you can show the value you bring to your business as a Salesforce consultant.
Setting Objectives
Firstly, what is an “objective”? An objective is a thing aimed at or worked towards; a goal! There are many methodologies and plenty of jargon that surrounds objectives, but at its core, it’s a goal with a measurable outcome.
So how do we set these objectives? A simple way of approaching objective setting is applying S.M.A.R.T right at the beginning of the discovery phase for the project you are working on.
S.M.A.R.T – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely
To elaborate on this, you need to be specific in the who, what, when, where, and why. This is to remove ambiguity so that the objective cannot be open to more than one interpretation.
You also want to ensure that the objective is measurable. Are you able to measure the success of what you have implemented, have you taken the baseline of what you are measuring against? For example, let’s say the objective is to increase the efficiency of a quoting process in Salesforce. A way to measure this would be the time taken for sales users in the quoting stage of an opportunity, but how long does it take for sales users to quote using the system right now?
The objective itself needs to be attainable. An unreasonable objective will set you up for failure, so ensuring that the objective is attainable is a key to ensuring the success of your implementation. Then ask yourself, is the objective relevant? Is it a worthwhile investment of time, and will it meet the needs of the business? Lastly, how timely is it? Can we establish the urgency of the need to make these changes, and are we able to complete and achieve this objective in a manageable time period?
Objective categorisation
All objectives are different and will affect different parts of the business, a good way to make things easier for yourself when categorising these objectives is by splitting them into the following pillars:
- Financial – Is the objective going to have a positive impact financially?
- People – Is the objective going to have a positive impact on the employees that work within the business and make their lives easier?
- Customer – Is the objective going to enhance the customer experience within your business?
- Process – Is the objective going to improve the process within your organisation?
The majority of objectives will fit into these categories. Separating your objectives out into these pillars will make it easier for you to be able to set ways of measuring the outcomes of them.
How do we measure these objectives?
So we have set our objectives with our stakeholders and we have agreed they are measurable, but now we need to ensure we can report on these objectives.
Let’s take the example we mentioned previously:
“We want to improve the efficiency of our quote process”
For this example, the business is going to be implementing CPQ with Docusign, so let’s lay out which areas of the business this will impact along with how it will impact them.
- Financially:
Reduce the time taken to quote, therefore, we are able to send out more quotes in a timely manner. This will require less time to create and send quotes to customers and we would expect to see more business coming through due to quicker response times.
Measure: Increase in sales
- People:
Enable users to spend less time configuring and writing up quotes, thereby making their lives easier.
Measure: User feedback
- Customer:
Reduce the time taken for the customer to receive quotes, thereby benefiting their experience with the business and increasing the likelihood of them not going with competitors.
Measure: Customer feedback on the sales process
- Process:
By creating a slicker, smoother process to quote out of the system, the speed of quoting is significantly improved.
Measure: Time taken in the quoting stage of an opportunity
Get creative when defining how you are going to measure your objectives. For example, we are reducing the time taken to send quotes out of the system. So in this instance, we could try and gain insight into what the average salary/cost of a salesperson is and compare the time taken in the cost of creating a quote in the system currently. You can then apply a monetary value to the time spent creating quotes.
In conclusion, setting objectives and measuring against the baseline that you have taken will demonstrate value and show how impactful the smallest of changes can be for your business.
