The anatomy of a review board scenario

As you have seen in Chapter 12, Practice the Review Board – First Mock, and in Chapter 14, Practice the Review Board – Second Mock, the review board scenarios are usually structured in a specific way. They typically contain the following sections:

• Project overview: This section provides general information about the company (which is what the scenario all about), its services, pain points, geographic locations covered by the company, growth plans, and so on. This section is generally helpful for you to understand the bigger picture. It can also help you develop your initial understanding of potential actors (the group of users who would eventually interact with the solution).

  This section might include some important figures (however, this is not necessarily the only place where such figures might exist). We have learned from many previous scenarios that these figures could significantly impact the target data volume.

...

General solving tips

Let's start with a set of general tips on tackling, organizing, and structuring your solution. We have come across many examples in the previous chapters. Let's go through a few more.

Go through the scenario and annotate first

This is something we've repeated many times in previous chapters. Before you start with your incremental solving, go through the whole scenario, take notes, and add annotations next to each requirement.

You won't get a printed version of the scenario on a virtual review board. You will get an editable Word document instead. You can highlight sections and add annotations on the Word document directly. You can also use different colors to annotate various topics, for example, potential LDVs.

This activity should help you during both the incremental solving and the catch-all presentation stages. The review board scenarios are complex and lengthy (as you have experienced yourself in the previous four chapters)...

Managing the board

The judges in the review board are seasoned CTAs who are trained to act as judges. They are trained to not show emotion. They will maintain a poker face during your presentation and Q&A. This way, they avoid disturbing or misleading the candidate by showing positive or adverse reactions.

However, you can use the following simple tips to help you manage the board.

Help them to keep up with you

When you present your solution, help the judges follow you by highlighting the relevant requirement's location in the scenario. They can't read your mind, and they might miss one of your statements. Help them by pointing them to the requirement you are solving whenever you feel a need for that.

Tie your solution back to the requirement

Avoid presenting a dry solution that is untied to a requirement (also known as a solution without a requirement). Make sure you articulate the relationship between your proposed solution and a shared requirement.

...

Time management

Time management is absolutely crucial in this exam. I can't stress that enough, no matter how many times I've repeated it throughout this book. If Salesforce decided to introduce a new domain to this certificate, I would confidently propose time management.

Here are some tips and tricks to help you manage your time during the review board exam.

Plan ahead and stick to your plan

You have to have a time plan for every stage of the exam: a time plan for the solving, the presentation, and the Q&A stages. Your solving stage's time plan could look like the following:

Table Appendix.1 – Proposed time plan – solving stage

You can develop your own time plan based on your own skills and abilities. For example, you could be a slow reader but a speedy diagram creator. In that case, you can increase the time allocated for the initial scenario reading and annotation and reduce the time allocated for the artifacts...

Your presentation – make or break

You are now aware of the importance of the review board presentation phase. We discussed time management techniques and different ways to manage the board. Let's now go through a set of tips that are mainly related to your soft presentation skills.

Show confidence

It is a challenging exam and a difficult presentation. You might feel nervous and under a lot of pressure. But you have to control these feelings and radiate confidence throughout the presentation and Q&A.

You need to practice the way you stand in front of the board. This involves nothing special, but try not to look stressed or afraid. Look at them and make some eye contact. They won't show any emotion (as they are trained not to), but you still have to demonstrate your ability to communicate with the audience.

Try holding an object in your hand – a cup, a pen, or paper. Some people feel more confident when they do so.

Cut down the ah and ehm sounds...

Your exam, your way

You have read this book and gone through several suggestions and recommendations. You will also read and hear a lot more from other CTAs, coaches, candidates, and experts while you prepare for your review board.

Some would recommend approaches different than others. If you speak to 10 different CTAs, you would probably hear 10 various bits of feedback on how they prepared and attended the review board. There will be significant overlap, but there will also be different points of view.

For example, some would recommend using PowerPoint presentations instead of flip charts. Others would recommend a different structure and time plan. Some might be entirely against the catch-all presentation stage, while others might support it. This feedback could be coming from actual CTAs, which means that what they have recommended actually worked. Yet, it might not work for you.

What you need to keep in mind that there is no right approach. You need to figure out the approach...

Next steps

You have come a long way now. You have practiced solving several scenarios and successfully handled different functional and technical challenges. Let's plan your next steps together.

Practice and practice more

Practice makes it perfect. This is applicable for pretty much everything in life, including preparing for the CTA review board.

To put it simply, the more mocks you do, the better chance you will have of passing. Put yourself under conditions as close as possible to the real thing. Practice using a timer and presenting to someone.

I expect my mentees to do between five and nine full mocks before they are considered ready for the review board. If you get a chance to do more, grab it. The more mocks you do (especially using different scenarios), the more you will know about your preferred style and strategy to tackle this exam.

You can even do mocks using the same scenario several times. There is value in using a new scenario. The surprise factor...

The community and available training

The market demand for architects is higher than ever. It is beneficial for everyone to develop highly skilled architects: Salesforce, Salesforce partners, clients, and the architects themselves. There are several valuable resources that can help you prepare for your review board. Here are some.

Salesforce training and study groups

Salesforce has developed two valuable trainings to prepare candidates for the CTA review board: the CTA-601 and the CTA-602. In addition, they have launched a regular office hours webinar to get in touch with candidates and share practical knowledge. There are also several other study groups with valuable information. Make yourself familiar with the following:

• Certified Technical Architect Preparation Workshop (CTA-601): This is a workshop-style training. It will help you understand the exam objectives and develop your skills to create an end-to-end solution. More info can be found at the following links...

Journey Towards Becoming a Salesforce CTA – Book Club

We have created an exclusive book club for you on our Packt Community page, to share knowledge and have insightful discussions around the topics covered in this book. This book club is for all the readers, existing architects, and anyone who aims to achieve the Salesforce CTA certification.

You are welcome to discuss the book, share your own experiences, views, and best practices on designing modern, practical, and robust architectures on the Salesforce platform, and help us grow the number of Salesforce CTAs globally.

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