I’m currently working with a client that has some technical knowledge, but without any Salesforce experience.
In today’s working session, my colleague updated a field mapping document with the client. The document describes the mapping from the legacy table and field to the upcoming Salesforce object and field.
My colleague asked how each legacy field is used, and then proceeded to map it to a Salesforce object and field. As the Solution Architect, I chimed in when needed, and offered advice in explaining some Salesforce concepts.
When the session was done, we had an Excel sheet with mappings to things the client doesn’t fully understand. Since they don’t really know Salesforce, how could they?
Given this, how do you ask for the client to sign-off to something they don’t really understand?
You ask for a reasonable sign-off.
You let them know you are only looking for 80% confidence in your work. And you inform them they are able to make changes in the future. In the design phase, the goal is just to get a reasonable level of certainty (not absolute certainty) before you start building.
The takeaway
The client doesn’t need to fully understand the solution. They simply need to feel relatively confident in it and trust that you know what you’re doing.