How To Become an Effective Salesforce Project Delivery Leader
Looking for pragmatic strategies to help you become a more effective Salesforce project delivery leader? Watch our latest community conversation with Pei Mun Lim, Salesforce project manager and founder of ZenHao Training to learn how she has championed Salesforce projects at enterprise organizations, while providing a holistic leadership approach to software delivery.
Tristan Lombard:
Oh, hello. It’s Tristan Director of Community at Provar, wishing all of you, your loved ones and global teams a fabulous day today. Now y’all I’m really, really excited to introduce the speaker and the topic today. This leader is an exceptional one, well known in the Salesforce ecosystem. We’re going to be talking about pragmatic solutions to bring back to you and your teams, as well as the value of testing at every part of your delivery process. I’m really, really excited to introduce Pei Mun Lim, who has worked with consulting partners for 25 plus years from Microsoft, Remedy before moving to Salesforce in 2014.
Now, her forte is in creating high performing teams to deliver her projects successfully. Pei has been a system engineer, DBA, BA, functional consultant, test manager and project program manager, and in 2020, Pei launched Zenhao Training, a consulting leadership account academy. She also delivers master classes to help Salesforce partners build their internal talent into an outstanding team. Now Pei, how did I do in that introduction?
Pei Mun Lim:
That was very well done. I was impressed. I want to meet this lady. Who is she?
Tristan Lombard:
Well, I’m thrilled that you’re here and thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to shine a light on leadership. I know so many people are going to benefit from this conversation.
Pei Mun Lim:
Yes, let’s go.
Tristan Lombard:
So the first question, and I won’t do this in a Barbara Walters impersonation, cause I can’t, but just imagine. What’s the number one secret ingredient for successful Salesforce project delivery?
Pei Mun Lim:
I would say, it doesn’t matter if you are running the project internally or it’s a consulting-led project, but for any project to be successful, you need someone who’s really excited. So the key thing to remember is if you have an executive champion or an executive sponsor or a product champion who is so excited about the product or the platform about what it can give you and pull you on board his ship and bring the magic – that is the number one critical success factor I would say.
Tristan Lombard:
You have that level of excitement in you and I see that. Everyone has different brands. I guess, just a quick little follow up question to that is, how do you help continue that excitement and inspire that in others?
Pei Mun Lim:
Well, it is easy because Salesforce is so sexy by itself, right? It’s a lot harder if you’ve got a product that’s boring and that’s difficult to work with, that it’s like pulling teeth out. It’s not that case with Salesforce. And what’s fantastic is I have seen Salesforce projects delivered so well where it is really sexy, it’s really slick and I know that the work that’s gone into it. And when someone tells me I’m using Salesforce at work and it’s a dog, it’s horrible, all I can say is you didn’t do it right. Your partner or your implementation team or you didn’t have an executive champion who knew all the magical things you could do and just got everyone on board to just make it happen. That’s where it went wrong for you.
Tristan Lombard:
I love that. And another question in the vein of that too, we’re talking a little bit about Salesforce project delivery and I have a lot of friends that are Salesforce admins, and I’m always curious from your perspective. What do you think is a critical skill for Salesforce admins to continue to be an essential part of the software delivery and life cycle?
Pei Mun Lim:
Let me just flip that back a little bit. So very early on in my career, I was a system administrator. So I was in charge. I was the queen of my domain, the servers, the exchange servers, the SQL servers, the database, everything was under my control. And what I really liked about it was that they were my baby and anytime any business division wants to put something in, I was always very keen to see how that product benefits them and get to understand what those business users really need and be on board. So I was part of making magic happen for them. And I think that’s the same for Salesforce admin. This is your baby.
You are in charge of a business critical platform that brings so much benefit to other people that it be, I’m going to use this word, it behooves you to make sure that you are able to bring that excitement to your users. And if you can do that, then this is what you’re growing. This is what you’re nurturing. This is your thing. And if you can have that mindset, then it becomes easy to be an important part of the business and not just the system administrator to create a field or change my password, et cetera. It’s a lot more than that.
Tristan Lombard:
I love what you said there. I think that’s something so powerful is that there is an amazing leader here that I so admire. And I asked her, I said, “We often talk about people moving on to their next career, the next moment, you’ve been here for over five years, what’s kept you here?” And she said, “Tristan, I’ve never really felt like I worked for a company. I mean, I’m very grateful. I love what I do. I’ve always felt like all of these features, I built them. I scaled them. They’re my babies. And I’ve seen them grow and that’s what’s kept me.” And it just stuck with me. I love that you’re saying that, I think that’s powerful.
What advice would you give to the Salesforce admins that believe that test automation or software testing, it’s part of the developer and QA’s responsibilities and they don’t really play a part in it?
Pei Mun Lim:
When I was a system administrator, it was my domain. It was my job to make life better and easier and more fun for my users in any and every way. And if I have to be part of the testing and I was for a lot of the business applications that the divisions had to roll out, like even accounting, just being part of the testing meant that I got closer to the them, I got to understand their pain and I got to be the hero when I could make that disappear and I could make it better. So when I look at things like that, it’s not that difficult to imagine yourself as part of the team that makes business operations, as smooth as possible for your users, because at the end you want work to be fun and not painful.
And I see system administrators as a key element of making it happen. And that includes testing sometimes, being involved in your users’ day to day lives and what they’re going to implement and why are they not looking forward to this new accounting system they’re going to get or this new Salesforce and how you can help change that by just immersing yourself in their world.
Tristan Lombard:
I couldn’t agree more. And just talking with all my girlfriends again, Salesforce admins, I’ve come to learn that they’re really the backbone of the company and the power that they have – they use it for good. But I think that it’s such an underappreciated in larger organization to think sometimes it’s just really, they kind of go under the radar and I’ve always believed that Salesforce admins play a critical part, not just in terms of product innovation, software delivery, but the success of your organization and culture.
Pei Mun Lim:
I agree.
Tristan Lombard:
I want to get to some of the tougher questions. As a project manager sometimes you’ve seen the client needs to be convinced that they need to test what you are developing. And they come in with these higher teams, whether they’re external or internal to get the job done. And it means that they’re doing it under UAT ensuring that software is of excellent quality. And then it’s the project manager that has to say, “Clients, testing is something that you need to put in accountability points too.”
How do you express to that client the importance of testing, especially if they don’t necessarily believe in the value of testing as an exercise for themself?
Pei Mun Lim:
Let me draw some examples and some analogies. It’s not like buying a car where you know the testing has already been done to ensure that it’s safe, to ensure that it complies with regulations on pollution and stuff like that. You are building your own car from the best engine, the best frame and chassis and so on and so forth. You need to make sure that it works as well. I just came from a concert, a Hans Zimmer concert. He’s a composer and he composed all the music from blockbuster movies, like Wonder Woman and Dune and Pirates of the Caribbean and I was watching and I was totally blown away by his leadership. That’s a post for another time – but the lighting, the music, the visuals, can you imagine him going on stage without actually testing all of it, to make sure that it was on point?
And if you can imagine that, why would you not do that for a business critical software that you are engaging a team to be spoken for you in the way that you do things in the way that your team is running the business? Why would you not do that? You are doing yourself a disservice. A lot of partners have their own QA team, and they will do their best to make sure that what they give you is the best that they can do. But they don’t know your business, they don’t know your data, they don’t know your customer and they don’t really truly know the way that you work. So when they hand it over to you, they’ve done their best, but they are still an outsider, even though they might have done 5,100 projects that are similar to yours, they are not your company.
And so when you use the word second time, it behooves you to make sure that what they’re giving you fits you. And so Mr. Customer, I would suggest making sure that testing is right at the beginning, when you are thinking about a transformation service. That it’s right there upfront when you’re talking about scoping requirements, budget, timeline, quality, it should be right up there. Testing – how do we make sure not just the product that you get is of quality, but the way of working, how your team gets there, how your team works with the partner, how the whole thing comes about. When your partner leaves you with this amazing product, is the magic going to continue in your team? Are you going to continue to innovate, to take that platform to the next level so that it can help your business get to the next level?
This is what all companies should be thinking about, not as an afterthought, which makes me really sad. And I go to the toilet and I cry when a customer tells me, “Oh, we are short on budget. Let’s cut out the testing because you guys are great at what you do, aren’t you?” And that makes me really sad. So every time I have a new project, new client, I make sure that testing is right up front there. We talk about test strategy, how you’re approaching it and why you should engage experienced testers and not rely on your team to not only do their day job, but also take time from the weekends and the evening to do the UAT and so on. You’re doing them a disservice. You’re doing yourself disservice. So let’s talk about how to make sure testing is right up there on your agenda, on the forefront of all thinking so that it’s at every step of the process, not just at the end.
Tristan Lombard:
In your master classes and leadership content, you touched on the importance for Salesforce admins and continuing to build interpersonal skills. Now we know that many have fantastic technical skills, but not all may be able to fully handle conflicts, run meetings, and manage expectations – realistic expectations. How important is it to focus on practicing some of your soft or interpersonal skills? And are there any additional resources that you can share with our community?
Pei Mun Lim:
So I think it is really deeply important and very much overlooked. If you look at the job descriptions out there for any Salesforce positions, they would have, you need this certificate, you need to be able to do this and this and flows, etc. And as an afterthought, be a great team player, be a great communicator. And it is an afterthought and there’s an assumption that everyone is a good communicator because I can talk, you can hear me. I can understand you when you order two burgers and so on and so forth. But communication is so much more deeper than that, much much more deeper than that. And as a volunteer for Samaritans, which is an organization in the UK, we provide emotional support for those who are going through difficult times, especially those who are contemplating ending their lives.
I get on the phone and I talk to a lot of people about very, very deep topics and I take that out in my work life and I practice the kind of listening. And what I’ve realized, a lot of people practice listening on the surface level. And when I coach or help people ask some gentle questions and just remove your bias, remove your judgment, remove the need to solve problems, just be there as you said earlier about meeting them where they’re at, you open many, many doors and people who are initially upset, defensive, and let’s not forget that those people that were helping in terms of putting a new system in, it’s a change. Not many people embrace change. A lot of people for many, many reasons may be resistant, may worry about their jobs and they may hold back. They may not give you the kind of answers you need to help design what’s best in terms of the automation and the functionalities for them.
So what I share with my team and people that I train is the first thing is active listening because that’s the one thing that will open doors most of the time that you didn’t know were there, and help you explore and deepen the relationship. And that makes things so much easier. And when you look at how people get jobs, they get jobs because of the hard skills, because of the certs. And they lose them because of their soft skills, no one talks about them. You couldn’t get along with the client, you are a high conflict individual and you fight with your colleagues so much and you make people feel bad and all these are soft skills and they lose their jobs because of that. And so that’s why I want to raise this again in terms of visibility about how important it is and not make it as an afterthought.
Again, like testing, it is a crucial skill to master if you want to level up. And that’s why I created ZenHao Academy. It’s to help people do that. So on the membership side I’ve got lots and lots of videos of lots of training that I’ve done before, where I talk about all of this. And I run the master class for consulting discovery and for project management as well. And that’s the small, little things that I can do to just make it so that we have more amazing, successful, sexy Salesforce projects out there because there’s a lot of those and there’s a lot more that could be made better, in order to help people get better at making the sexy ones and not the other ones.
Tristan Lombard:
You are taking us to Salesforce church today. I love that. There’s a few things that came out. And you’re talking about, in the same way we’re thinking about testing at the beginning, we’re also thinking about software interpersonal skills right at the beginning too. And I love, I want to go back to, and thank you for your work by the way with good Samaritans. I just absolutely love it from one to another. I see you. And I appreciate you.
I want to go back though, to the part because when you’re caring, when you’re actively listening and you’re taking it in, you’re meeting them, the client or whoever where they’re at, there can be a lot of undoes. There is a lot of stress that you sometimes carry, right? And one of the things or anyone… And one of the things I hear, it gets easier over time. But one of the things that I see from you and I love this, you tap into your creativity. Can you tell us a little bit about the pens behind you and what that’s about?
Pei Mun Lim:
Oh, it’s just coloring pens. Basically it’s my daughters, but she and I, we like to do lots of drawing and coloring and I never thought that I was an artist and I was always very impressed and jealous of people who can draw, but then I realized I can do stick figures. And I give them fabulous hair and I can write stuff and I can convey ideas through like little stick people. So she’s helped me break through my, “Oh, I can’t draw. I’m not creative.” And she just goes for it. And I go for it too. So I have her to thank for that.
Tristan Lombard:
I love that. I love that. Shout out to your daughter. That’s amazing. Thank you for your service. You must follow this international treasure on LinkedIn and Salesforce leader and it’s so good. And I wanted to say as well, we’re going to drop her masterclass and training, all of that is information’s going to be below. And I wanted to say something that you don’t do so publicly. I wanted to thank you also for raising funds for Ukrainian relief, and we’re going to make a donation on your behalf as well.
Pei Mun Lim:
Thank you Tristan, it’s been a pleasure. I really enjoyed this.
Tristan Lombard:
We should do it again some time. Oh and lastly, shout out to Richard and Hetty for introducing me to this wonderful leader. And I can’t wait for everyone who is watching this recording to fall in love with your leadership like I have. I wanted to say, from all of us here at Provar, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for being a light. Thank you for adding humor, grace, and making Salesforce projects fun. We appreciate it. We’ll talk soon.
Pei Mun Lim:
Thanks Tristan. Bye.
Are you a Salesforce admin looking to ramp up your Salesforce projects? Provar can help with that. Click here to learn more.
