Defining the scope of your implementation

In this section, we will consider what we mean by scope, why it is important to clearly define at the very beginning of your Sales Cloud implementation project, and the importance of managing this throughout the life of the project. Let’s start by understanding what we mean by scope.

What is scope?

The scope of work defines what is included and, ideally, you would also state what isn’t. Defining the scope of work is a very important step in defining a piece of work, like a project, that will be carried out. Having a documented scope makes it easier for those working on the project to understand what they should and should be working on, it sets boundaries. This helps with overall alignment with the company goals which we talked about in the Aligning company strategy and values section.

It is common to get key stakeholders to sign off. In Chapter 7, Getting Sign-off, we look at getting formal sign-off as a method of confirming that stakeholders understand and agree to what is and isn’t in scope. Sign-off is also involved for scope changes, in the form of change requests.

Defining the scope

Defining the scope of your Sales Cloud implementation project is an essential first step. This typically happens during the Sales Cloud purchasing process or directly after the decision to purchase Sales Cloud. This early definition means allowing for the hopes and aspirations of the sales process to be captured.

The scope will typically include the business functions business processes, and the teams. For example, sales and marketing, the sales and lead generation process, and US and European sales teams. It matters less how it is written, and more that the stakeholders affected understand what it means. If your organization has a standardized way of defining project scopes you should follow that format. Wherever possible you should aim to avoid ambiguity or areas for interpretation. Although not always included it can be very valuable to include what isn’t going to be included. This might include data from specific systems, automating complex processes that are carried out infrequently, or certain groups of Users. Explicitly stating these means that anyone who wasn’t expecting these exclusions can raise their concerns earlier so the reasoning can be explained or they can be brought into scope.

Now we will learn about the role of managing scope in delivering a successful implementation.

Managing scope

Throughout the duration of the implementation, it is important to manage the scope of the work. During the life of an implementation, things change; for example, business conditions or team members change. Also, Stakeholders’ expectations can easily expand to features, functions, and capabilities that are not in the original plan. This often happens as people become more familiar with Sales Cloud capabilities and imagine how they can help them. It is also common for those working on the implementation to want to add extras they think will help Users and improve the end solution, even though they are outside the gathered requirements.

Deviating from the original scope is known as scope creep. This leads to increases in costs, as these are spent on delivery functionalities but not on what was agreed or what the business expected.

In practice, managing scope means listening to the requests that come in from stakeholders, but before agreeing to deliver them, comparing them to the original scope to ensure actioning them is an appropriate use of resources. Where requirements are in scope, they can be actioned. Where they aren’t, or where it is unclear, it should be communicated to the requester that they might not be in scope but will be captured and assessed. The requests and requirements should be logged in a backlog and brought to the attention of an individual or team of business stakeholders who can assess them in terms of business importance. This assessment might be carried out by a steering committee, which we introduced in the Alignment with company strategy and values section, or a Product Owner, who we will describe in more detail in the next chapter, Chapter 2, Defining the Approach. Where it is agreed that a change should happen, the scope should be changed, and the change should be signed off by the relevant stakeholders. If there are any external suppliers involved, this sort of change may require a contractual change, even if there is not an increase in effort or cost.

In summary, defining and managing the scope of your Sales Cloud implementation is an essential part of securing success. Even if you are not responsible for the overall scope of the implementation, you can still play an important part in ensuring that what is delivered is within the agreed scope.