Stakeholder Alignment is Key to Salesforce Success

Why is alignment so important?

• In many organizations, business and IT are working in isolation
  • Business leaders may define their requirements, then throw them “over the wall” to IT
  • IT implements the requirement, only to be told it wasn’t the solution the business needed
  • Perfect example of lack of alignment
• For successful programs using Salesforce technology, path to ROI is secured with a real partnership across all business/IT stakeholders working together for a common goal
  • This common goal should be documented in the program vision and strategy document - part of the first principle of COBIT5
  • COBIT5 is a business framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT
• When programs are not aligned, it delays or destroys ROI

When alignment goes wrong

• Example: blog post author visited CIO who wanted to understand why project costs were out of control for delivery of a specific application
  • Intent was to automate a paper-based construction defect process
  • They discovered:
    • Previous paper-based system was very complex and associated requirements were not communicated to development team
    • Project budget was entirely owned by IT - no money or resources secured for UAT - business users had different priorities
    • End-users did not see the value or benefits of automating the current process
• Creating alignment at the start would have resulted in a different outcome for the project

So how can your program achieve alignment from the start?

• When programs discuss stakeholders, they generally mean the program executive sponsor and senior IT and business leaders
• But, two other groups need to be included as well:

Middle Management

• Critical layer in most companies - focused on keeping the “lights on” and keeping things within the annual budget
  • Annual plan normally involves long and complex approval process
  • New, unplanned, mid-year projects are normally ignored
  • If a program is to be successful, IT and business middle management need to be engaged. You should:
    • Explain that you know their challenges
    • Explain how the new program will deliver their agreed commitments
    • Focus on “what’s in it for them”
• Do not proceed to the next step if there is no buy-in from middle management

End Users

• End Users make or break the implementation
• Adoption is critical for every persona in the business - no one really loves change to their daily work rituals. You should:
  • Engage with these stakeholders in groups by their planned usage (ie, personas) early in the process
  • Communicate clearly “what’s in it for them”
• If the end users can be engaged early, the program team(s) will understand adoption challenges early
  • If these concerns can be fed into the overall project map early on, then the product will be more likely to be successful overall

One Vision

• Once all stakeholders have been engaged, drive alignment across all stakeholder groups
  • Accomplish this through a common program vision and strategy
    • Should be created by the program team and approved by all executive stakeholders
    • Should be stated in business terms and include clear business outcomes
    • Should also have a clear set of measurements including project KPIs that have direct linkage to executive stakeholder KPIs
    • Draft should be circulated to all stakeholders to secure their feedback - revise it to incorporate the feedback, securing buy-in
• An example of how Salesforce drives alignment is via its V2MOM process