Confessions of a Project Manager: Salesforce Edition

Recently, we sat down with Ashley Saunders, one of the brilliant and ultra-organized project managers at SaltClick. We asked her about her project management journey and how PMing works in the Salesforce ecosystem.

How did you first get involved with Salesforce project management?

I was very lucky to have an awesome mentor Nicole Pomponio to bring me into the Salesforce world back in 2017. We worked together closely as Salesforce Administrators and handled many internal projects across multiple departments including Sales, Support, Marketing, etc.?

After a few years, we both decided to take our careers in different directions outside of Salesforce. After Nicole accepted a position with SaltClick, she provided incredible insight into the world of Project Management (and insight into how amazing SaltClick is!)

I began to miss working with the Salesforce platform and continued to stay in contact with Nicole. I began to grow a larger interest in Project Management as I started training through multiple platforms.?

Thanks to the amazing team at SaltClick, I joined the team in July 2023 as a Salesforce Project Manager. SaltClick has been an amazing experience, and I look forward to growing here!

In your own words, describe what a Project Manager for Salesforce does.

A Salesforce Project Manager helps lead the team in many ways including Planning, Team Coordination, Managing Budget and so much more.

With Planning, we’re working very closely with our awesome customers to ensure we’re completing all necessary discoveries to outline required tasks and times and allocating resources properly to ensure the project stays on schedule and runs smoothly.

With Team Coordination, we want to ensure that not only our internal team is on the same page but our external stakeholders as well! Communication is key to a successful project, and we work to continuously communicate updates through Sprint planning meetings as well as Slack.?

With Managing Budget, we’re working with the team to plan hours accordingly and reviewing time logged on a weekly basis to ensure we are within the allotted hours/budget throughout the project lifecycle.

Overall, Salesforce Project Managers are critical for the success of a project and the overall organization.

What's the most challenging aspect of managing Salesforce projects?

From my personal experience, the most challenging aspect of managing Salesforce projects would be constantly changing priorities and unexpected issues. When we’re working with our customers on planning sprints, we will have a set list of work items to work through and assigned priorities to work through these.?

As issues arise throughout this cycle, it can be difficult to keep timelines in check.?

To work through this challenge, internal and external communication can help resolve these issues, align priorities across the board and discuss how this will impact other task deadlines.

How do you keep up with the ever-evolving features and updates of Salesforce?

Salesforce does an AMAZING job at keeping their partners and customers updated on the newest and evolving features in the platform!?

Trailhead is my absolute favorite resource from Salesforce to keep myself aware of new functionality, products, and features. The Release Notes are extremely helpful and well organized to be able to jump to different areas of your favorite products.

What tools and technologies do you find indispensable in managing Salesforce projects?

The 3 most important tools that have helped me to successfully manage Salesforce projects are Jira, Confluence, and of course…Salesforce!?

Jira and Confluence are amazing collaboration tools to be able to easily track, transition, and update tickets in Active sprints and make prioritizing the backlog a breeze!?

Confluence is a crucial part of the Salesforce project management process as we house all client and internal notes/processes, and it makes it easy to track action items.?

Last but not least, Salesforce is an absolute necessity in being able to manage Salesforce projects. With direct access to the Salesforce orgs associated with a project, we can easily make changes in real time, test changes, and just about everything else!

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to be a Salesforce Project Manager?

One of the biggest pieces of advice to someone looking to get into Salesforce Project Management is starting to build up knowledge on the Salesforce system.?

Now you’re not required to be technical in nature or even an expert, but the knowledge of the system is extremely helpful in customer discussions. I highly recommend that you start gaining knowledge through Trailhead and apply for the Salesforce Admin Certification.

This is a great springboard to get a better understanding of the platform, functionality, and capabilities.

How do you ensure user adoption post-Salesforce implementation?

The biggest key to successful user adoption after a Salesforce implementation is the focus on the user experience prior to the rollout.?

As mentioned in my prior answer, communication is the key to success in all areas of the project. With communication, you can ensure users are aware of what is to come with the new implementation.?

With power user training and onboarding, this will allow users to test new features prior to release and provide feedback.?

Providing ongoing customer support is also important to resolve issues quickly to prevent users from becoming frustrated with the changes. I am personally a huge proponent of documentation to walk through functionality in addition to live sessions to solidify knowledge transfer.

What does a successful Salesforce project outcome look like to you?

A successful Salesforce Project outcome includes a few key areas including high-end user adoption, allowing end users to become more efficient and productive in their work, in-depth reporting/analytics, and many more areas as well.?

High user adoption shows that users are successfully using the new Salesforce implementation on a daily basis, and we’ve achieved areas of improvement in the customer’s business goals.?

With Salesforce implementations, we reduce the use of manual tasks and improve automation for day-to-day processes. In-depth reporting can help review meaningful data and assist in an organization's short- and long-term decision-making.?

Want to tackle Salesforce Projects with awesome PMs like Ashley?

Explore Careers at SaltClick.