During a mid-project meeting with a client today, we discussed some external processes. And it seemed like there was some confusion.
The initial scope seemed clear: Use a new form tool to capture contact information, send the results to Salesforce, and augment the platform to manage the new data.
This seemed straightforward enough. The client mentioned something about the finance team doing work in an external system, but they were confident the work would be done outside Salesforce.
Unfortunately, it turned out that wasn’t the case.
Their mistake was to assume these external processes should remain as is. After that, that’s the way they’ve always done it.
My mistake was not asking sufficient questions during the discovery. Perhaps we could have uncovered that this work should have been in Salesforce from the start.
The result is an add-on project, as there’s a gap. However once it’s completed, their processes will be streamlined with one source of truth and a significantly better validation process.
The takeaway
During discovery, try to overturn every rock. Even the ones your client doesn’t believe need overturning.