The world is a random place. One moment you could be working hard on a feature, and the next moment, the client asks you to drop everything and work on something else.

When I grew up, the boy scouts had the motto, “Be prepared”.

I think we can all agree that being prepared for certain things makes sense. So the conversation is  really about at what level do you stop being prepared.

For example, there’s a reason why our test units need to cover at least 75% of the apex code. There’s a reason why the QA team does both positive and negative tests.

Here are some things to be reasonably prepared for:

  • Confirm clients requirements in writing and get sign-off. This avoids disputes later.
  • Keep a living document of requirements, designs, and decisions. This ensures you know the reasons why you chose something, and the reasons why you didn’t choose something.
  • Build in a sandbox first, never directly in production. There’s a reason why you cannot create code in production.
  • Involve end users in UAT early, not just at the end. This is called left-shifting testing, and helps improve user adoption
  • Have backups and rollback options before deployments. In case something goes wrong, you’ll know what to do.

The takeaway
Be a boy scout. Be prepared.

Category:
Salesforce