Consultancy Dreamin’ - the write up
The best bit about Salesforce? The people.
Salesforce people love Salesforce and it is amazing to see.
Over 60 speakers at Consultancy Dreamin’ there to inspire others and impart wisdom and they delivered! So a big thanks to each and every one of them and a special mention to the organisers for putting on a very well delivered show!
There weren’t enough hours in the day to watch all of the talks I wanted to, so very much looking forward to getting access to all the great content and seeing more, but now I am just going to write about some of my key takeaways and favourite bits from the event.
There were 5 stages: Skills, Experience, Careers, Solutions and Trailblazer. It was great to see such a wide array of content, I decided to see at least one talk from each stage.
Firstly, Paul Harris’ talk on the Experience stage with ‘10 things you might not expect from being a consultant’ which was full of some great advice and a phrase I really liked from point 2 “seek first to understand and then to be understood - Steven Covey” which is so important in every project. Here is picture he used in his presentation to show what can happen if you fail to understand what the customer really wants.
I also really enjoyed Tom Bassett’s ‘How to Ace a Virtual Demo’ on the Experience stage. As I start to deliver more demos to clients over the next few months I will definitely be referring back to his presentation to make sure I am delivering the best demos I can. A key takeaway was constantly relate the solutions in the demo to the client’s problems, which is something we always look to do at Inardua.
On the Careers stage, I watched Skye Tyler with ‘Practice Makes Progress: How to learn consulting skills in any position’. She ran through important skills you need to be a successful consultant which were 1) be curious – ask questions, why how and why again, 2) synthesize business processes – focus on getting it right not being right and make sure you identify all the stakeholders and 3) tips on how best to estimate time/effort to customers with the key phrase “under promise and over-deliver”. She also talked about key soft skills empathising, empowering, trust and the BIG one communication.
On the skills stage Stuart Gascoyne on ‘Using process maps to identify gaps in User Stories’. This talk stated the top 3 reasons why Software Projects fail which are
1. Lack of user input
2. Incomplete requirements and specifications
3. Changing requirements and specifications
He then went into depth on how combining three modelling techniques can help you to over come these issues. The three techniques he discussed were soft systems, User stories (AS A, I WANT, SO THAT) and Universal Process Notation.
Continuing with the theme of process mapping I also watched Ian Gotts on the Solutions stage with ‘Simple business process mapping engages users and delivers results’. Process mapping is something I am really keen to master as I can see how useful it is. This presentation was truly engaging and I thought using Ryan Reynolds hilarious Aviation gin process to explain it was really clever and made it easy to follow understand.
Lastly, I watched Ashley Allen’s ‘From at-risk child to CEO’ on the Trailblazer stage!' The hardship she has been through in her life is incomprehensible to me and to be where she is now – AMAZING. She also had some really important key messages to share including “Believe in others, trust is contagious”. She is now the founder of ITequality, which is a Salesforce partner all about equality and diversity. She is also planning on launching a café for at-risk children. I found her story inspiring, she is absolutely smashing it! Well done Ashley!
There was a great variety of talks at Consultancy Dreamin’ and I learned a lot but there was definitely a stand out take home message – “Listen to your Customer and truly try to understand what they need”.
Thanks again to the organisers, I will definitely be back next year!