Sales Cloud North Star

What I Did

I worked with a team of 3 designers and 1 design researcher conducting on-site customer interviews, synthesizing research, developing personas and workflow maps, storyboards, and creating wireframes. During the packaging and polishing phase, I focused on designing a website where our process and vision would live.

Background

Our team was charged with defining the 3-year vision, or North Star, for Sales Cloud, Salesforce’s flagship product. Our goal was to take a human-centered, data-supported, and collaborative approach to the strategic challenges of adoption and growth.

The end result was a compelling vision aligning and unifying over 800 employees that build and support the Sales Cloud product at Salesforce.

Discovery & Research

The research we conducted as a group included:

  • 23 stakeholder 1:1s spread across 12 functional groups

  • 21 Salesforce-on-Salesforce hands-on sessions with users

  • 8 hours of product walkthroughs with internal stakeholders

  • 9 site visits with Sales Cloud users

  • 12 hours of time with representative users across personas

The site visits with Sales Cloud users were particularly informative because we saw users in their typical work environment and how they use the product every day every day.

Research Findings

  1. Salesforce needs to increase the value being delivered for both customers and users.

  2. Salesforce needs to move away from backlog thinking and towards future and roadmap thinking .

Organizational Alignment

Another big win during this phase was achieving organizational alignment on the goal and collaboratively creating a project brief to guide our team through the rest of this project. Salesforce is such a large organization that communicating our work and next steps was incredibly important.

 
Sorting exercise we walked users through during on-site interviews. Users would identify all applications users interact with on a daily basis.

Sorting exercise we walked users through during on-site interviews. Users would identify all applications users interact with on a daily basis.

 

Synthesis & Modeling

We identified our target personas (deal closers, pipeline builders, and sales managers) and how Sales Cloud fits into their unique workflows and processes. From there, we were able to clearly identify pain points for each persona.

Below you can see some of the whiteboarding we did to map out persona workflows. These maps evolved into a well-defined goals diagram that we’ve shared with the large UX organization as a research tool for their own projects.

After synthesizing our research and modeling workflows, we organized workshop sessions internally to generate ideas across for our long-term vision.

Mapping out the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales process in the context of the tools users use inside and outside of Salesforce.

Mapping out the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales process in the context of the tools users use inside and outside of Salesforce.

One part of our goals diagram showing the process and goals for a Deal Closer or Trusted Advisor. The red flags indicate a process that takes place outside of Salesforce.

One part of our goals diagram showing the process and goals for a Deal Closer or Trusted Advisor. The red flags indicate a process that takes place outside of Salesforce.

Vision Ideation Workshops

Our team led 5 workshops across the larger Sales Cloud UX team, Solution Engineering team, and our key executive stakeholder group. The focus of the workshop was to generate ideas to improve pain points in the product based on participants’ own experiences or what they are hearing from customers directly.

We printed out our goals diagram and examples of competitors in the CRM space and put them on the wall. We asked participants to highlight what our competitors are doing well and what they’d like to see in our product using sticky notes and pens. The goal of the workshop was for participants to use the goals diagram as a reference to understand the pain points our users face and generate their own ideas for solutions.

The workshop created another opportunity for organizational alignment and ideas that focus areas to guide the next stage in our process.

 
Participants during the workshop looking at and reacting to screenshots of our competitors.

Participants during the workshop looking at and reacting to screenshots of our competitors.

 

Vision Sprints

Our small team of 4 designers came together to generate ideas to solve for the user paint points we identified, using the workshop ideas as a reference and focus.

Our small team started by sketching storyboards individually based on one user and use case. After storyboarding individually, we came back together as a group to share and discuss. From the storyboards, we were able to pinpoint a few use cases and ideas that would help illustrate a vision for Sales Cloud.

After the storyboarding exercise, we drafted a vision statement. We collaborated on this document editing and updating our own versions and coming together to discuss those changes the next day. We iterated and brainstormed, going through around 10-15 versions.

Example of an early version of the slides our team put together to tell the story of the Salesforce vision.

Example of an early version of the slides our team put together to tell the story of the Salesforce vision.

Packaging & Polish

Our final deliverables included:

  • Sales Cloud North Star website (sfdc.co/salescloud-future)

  • Sales Cloud North Star strategy brief

  • Sales Cloud North Star video illustrating our vision for Sales Cloud

  • In-app prompt guidelines

I took the lead on designing the website and developing the content. I played a supporting role in editing the strategy brief, editing the video script, narrating the video, and providing edits to the guidelines we developed for in-app prompts based on our research.

Recording the audio for the video narration in the Salesforce studio.

Recording the audio for the video narration in the Salesforce studio.

A snapshot of the final strategy deck where we used low-fidelity iPad sketches to illustrate a theme and how it could come to life in the product.

A snapshot of the final strategy deck where we used low-fidelity iPad sketches to illustrate a theme and how it could come to life in the product.

Another snapshot of the final strategy deck showing a second example of how the vision could come to life.

Another snapshot of the final strategy deck showing a second example of how the vision could come to life.

Final Vision

1. Guided personalization empowers users.

Empower users to take control of their experience. Guide them with recommendations and best practices for using Sales Cloud more effectively, thereby increasing productivity and adoption.

2. Invisible assistant accompanies users, even outside Salesforce.

Seamlessly fit into users’ workflows so they can work from their favorite tools. Connect their data across tools while building trust and delivering proactive insights.

3. Lead to Cash collaboration unifies teams.

Enable teams to uncover and share insights across the business, driving seamless customer experiences.

Results

Our overall impact on the organization was considerable. We developed a forward-looking vision for the product that has been the driving force for the product roadmap. We also played a significant role in promoting cross-functional alignment across the product teams, one of the biggest challenges for an organization of over 1000 employees.

Date June - December 2018