How I became a Certified Technical Architect

As I am writing this article, I need to keep pinching myself to check if this really just happened. Yesterday, I passed the final step of my Salesforce certified technical architect journey and I can call myself a CTA now. As for many of my colleagues in the Salesforce industry, passing the CTA exam was something I anticipated to do for a long time and it has been an amazing journey to get here.

In this article, I will write about my experiences of the review board. I will try to explain the emotions I went through and the actions I took to control those as well as explaining how I prepared for the board. If you don't know what a CTA is and how to become one, have a look at one of the many blog posts that talk about this or the Salesforce certification site.

Where did I start?

It is pretty much a year ago, that I decided to really tackle the CTA review board. At that stage, I had already passed the multiple choice exam that was required before the System and Application Architect certs came out. So all I had left was to pass the review board. Not knowing much about the review board, my thoughts were along the lines of "how hard can it be?" and gosh I was wrong...

My review boards

I attempted the full review board in Munich in July 2017 after I had prepared in the evenings and weekends for around three months. I finished the board with the result of a partial pass. This meant that I passed all but one section of the architect areas (for the different areas refer to the study guide). The area I failed was System Architecture and I was required to retake this section by completing another review board with a smaller scenario that only focussed on System Architecture primarily. Yesterday, I took the section retake review board and passed. While my first scenario was about 9 pages long (two pages were cover and index though), yesterday's scenario was much shorter with only 6 pages (again two pages were cover and index). Even though the time was shorter in my retake yesterday (half the time of the full board to be exact), I got through the scenario a lot better than I did in July. I believe this is mostly due to being much better prepared, especially from a process perspective that helped me to get through all requirements faster and more structured.

After completing the Q&A yesterday, I left the Salesforce office, only to receive a call a few minutes later from the CTA program director and all judges congratulating me on passing.

How did I prepare?

My preparation was primarily focused on gaining knowledge across the entire platform, understand limits and deep dive into areas that I haven't played with much before (such as Social Sign-on, Field Service Lightning, SSO with Salesforce as an IdP etc.). I was building/configuring a lot of those things to really understand how they work and what the limitations are - as an example I configured SSO from Salesforce to Google and Social Sign-on from Linkedin to Salesforce. I also focussed heavily on sharing of records and the different mechanisms available as I had heard previously that many people fail the board due to gaps in their sharing model. In addition to revising the platform features, I did around three mock exams but never really presented them to anyone but myself. This surely was one of my major downfalls as I got into serious time management issues when I did my presentation of my solution.

For my section retake yesterday, I prepared very differently. I went a lot deeper into each knowledge area and really tried to build everything possible. This, for example, included writing simple java applications to host them on Heroku only to then enable Heroku Connect to see how the integration to Salesforce via External Objects works. I built every single OAuth flow from JWT to Device token flows, to fully understand how and especially when to use them. I also played extensively with the mobile SDK to for example understand differences like hybrid_local vs hybrid_remote apps. It might be worth mentioning that my retake only focussed on System Architecture which included six areas spanning document management, system landscape, single vs. multi-org, reporting & analytics, licensing and mobile. In addition to diving much deeper into each knowledge area, I also did about five mocks which I did under real exam conditions. This allowed me to refine my approach and to get some real feedback but also to get a lot better with my time management. There is nothing more important than actually getting through the scenario and finishing the presentation on time while addressing almost all requirements. I struggled with this in July, but had a spare time yesterday that I was then able to use to back up my solution.

My approach

The review board is an emotional rollercoaster simply due to the time pressure you are under and for being aware what is at stake. I funded the full exam fees out of my own pocket and really did not want to lose that money.

It is important to mention, that everyone at Salesforce made me feel more than welcome and really tried to help me relax and to calm down as much as possible.

I remember attending my first review board attempt very nervously. The program director from Salesforce was present at the review board and she was simply amazing and helped me to calm down before starting my scenario. Unfortunately, I was under immense time pressure because I did not start preparing all my diagrams as I was going through the scenario but rather did them all at the end. I also extracted every requirement into an Excel sheet and then wrote my solution next to this. I lost large amounts of time by copying and pasting. With that in mind, I then had to present and struggled to get to the point and tell a story that related back to the requirements. In my head I have this memory where I am just hammering through the 120 requirements I extracted from the scenario trying to finish on time. The Q&A that followed made me more comfortable because I was able to interact with the judges like it is in normal client engagements. However, overall I left the review board in July expecting a fail result which as mentioned turned out to be a partial pass.

Taking my lessons from the first board, I approached yesterday very differently. I felt a lot more confident in my knowledge and approach due to the extensive revision and mocks I did. When I walked to the Salesforce office yesterday, I caught myself thinking about what happens after the board and what my reactions will be if I fail or pass - I very consciously then told myself to focus on the "now" and not the after. I made it clear to myself again that I had been preparing extensively for months for this day and that I should approach the scenario in exactly the same way I completed the mocks. This really helped me to relax. When I got the scenario there were no major surprises and I had a clearly defined approach. I started drawing my actors and system landscape very early and also completed my data model as I was going through the requirements. I ended up with around 15 minutes spare which allowed me to go through the requirements again to back up my solution. The same counted for the presentation, I introduced the company, pointed out the actors and system landscape before I jumped into addressing each requirement. I had a few minutes spare at the end which allowed me to address assumptions, back up my solution and talk about areas that may not have been very present in the scenario. The Q&A allowed me to explain and justify my solution and to clarify my assumptions. I had made a few choices in my System Landscape that weren't ideal but was able to either justify or change them in the Q&A part. The last part also finished a few minutes early which in my head is an indicator for either a really good or terrible presentation. And so I left the office with a better feeling than the first time but still uncertainty until I received the call...

My advice

If you are planning to attempt the review board I highly recommend finding a peer or mentor that can help you to prepare and to get through it. I was fortunate enough to work with Chris for many years and he has been an amazing support to me throughout the entire journey. He was my judge on all my mock exams and has been giving me honest and constructive feedback on how to improve my presentation and problem-solving skills. I don't think it is required that you peer or mentor is a CTA but more importantly that you trust the person's advice and feedback and that you can discuss different knowledge areas within the platform.

In terms of the scenario approach, I highly recommend drawing as you go. You won't have enough time to go through the scenario twice so you need to be efficient with your time. You can extract most actors and system landscape components from the first page of the scenario - so draw them immediately. Also, build your data model and role hierarchy as you go through the scenario and draw them immediately. Put your drawings onto the supplied white board/flip chart immediately (don't draw them first on an A4 sheet of paper) and remember that this isn't a test in how beautiful your diagrams look like but more so if they contain all required components.

For the presentation, introduce the company briefly and point out your actors and system landscape components. You can then refer easily back to those when you go through the requirements to back up your choices.

My last piece of advice is not to rush into this. The board is a huge step up from any Salesforce multiple choice exam or Trailhead super badge. Attempt it when you are ready and when you have gained enough consulting experience that allows you to speak freely and without hesitation to the panel of judges. You will need to know all areas in Salesforce and most likely you will have some weaker and some stronger areas - try to fill those gaps before. Also know some important AppExchange apps (Conga, DocuSign, SMSMagic, SpringCM, GetFeeback etc.) as your solution might need those.

Overall, the experience has been very rewarding and I feel like I know significantly more compared to a year ago when I started this journey. With that note, good luck to anyone that is attempting the board - you can do it ????