When thinking of a Salesforce Architect, people usually jump to the need for a deep technical knowledge of Salesforce. But that’s only part of the picture, and there are so many other skills that are important to become a highly successful Salesforce Architect. Keir Bowden, Chief Technical Officer at BrightGen, features in today’s episode of the Salesforce Posse podcast to share his incredible experience at Salesforce.

Today, we talk to Keir Bowden about the value of people skills, how to handle difficult situations, and the significance of effective communication across organizational levels. We discuss the need to make things as easy to use as possible and the design principles behind this philosophy.  Also, Keir explains critical things you need to know and where to begin your training to become an architect. At last, we reach a point in the conversation where we talk about learning to say no.

Keir has worked in the information technology sector for the past three decades and is currently the Chief Technology Officer at BrightGen, a Salesforce Platinum Partner in the United Kingdom. He is responsible for the current and future technical strategy, certification and product development there. Since 2008, Keir has been developing solutions and applications on Salesforce, and Keir currently possesses a number of qualifications, including the highly sought-after Technical Architect (CTA) certification. In addition to being a Salesforce MVP, he is the author of the Visualforce Development Cookbook, a frequent blogger on topics related to Apex and Visualforce solutions, and a speaker at events such as the Salesforce World Tour, Dreamforce and London’s Calling. He maintains a blog in his leisure time, writing on Apex, Lightning Components, and the Salesforce Command Line Interface.

[02:08] Background – Who is Mr. Big Bob Buzzard?

[04:00] Soft Skills – We are all savvy with PCs, but dealing with actual humans is a different story.

[09:27] Keir’s Role – Keir shares his role and objectives in the room.

[11:46] Be Simple – We discuss the importance of simplicity in design and how to achieve it.

[15:04] Difficult Conversations – Disagreement is typical at times of transition. Keir shares his ideas on how to cope with crises like these.

[20:56] Communication – The importance of communicating at different company levels.

[24:08] Key Learnings – Keir outlines the essential skills you need to become an architect and where to start learning.

[33:54] No – The art of saying “No.”

Resources:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keirbowden/

Hosted by AdminToArchitect.com

A clear vision leads to understanding what an organization wants to achieve as a business. Gemma Blezard joined us today to discuss aligning salesforce architecture to organizational vision.

Gemma Blezard is the founder of The Architect Club & Ladies Be Architects. She is also a Salesforce MVP, entrepreneur, and an influencer of Salesforce architects around the world. She has talked at Salesforce and community-led conferences, including user groups, Dreamforce, Salesforce World Tour London, the Salesforce Partner Forum, French Touch Dreamin’, and many more. She has won several awards, including Salesforce’s Golden Hoodie (May 2018), WeAreTheCity’s TechWoman100 award (2018), Salesforce MVP, BIMA100 Digital Champion for Change & Computing’s ENT Role Model of the Year. In 2020, she delivered a free online salesforce training course for the unemployed and won the Digital Revolution award for Outstanding Contribution to the Salesforce ecosystem. Gemma lives in Bedford, England, United Kingdom.

During today’s conversation, Francis and Gemma discussed governance in a salesforce project, following into what empathy can do for others. Gemma shares information about building a vision for her community, The architect club. Further into the conversation, they talk about the relationships between the client and the organization, how they manage risks, and the difference between a developer and architecture. Gemma shares what it is to be a part of a community with her and her journey through years with Salesforce. Wrapping up today’s conversation, Gemma shares what advice she wants to give to her 20 years old self and why.

[02.47] Governance – Starting the conversation, Gemma explains what governance means in a salesforce project.

[07.05] Empathy –  Gemma shares the importance of having empathy towards other people because it helps them to perform better.

[09.03] The architect club – A clear vision is a must in any organization. Gemma dives into how they take considerable time to build their vision first and then go to the others.

[13.39] Relationships – Gemma dives into customer relationships’ role in an organization’s well-being.

[19.51] Readiness – Gemma addresses ‘readiness’ as one of the most significant issues in salesforce projects.

[24.52] Open-ended questions – Gemma shares what questions are better when conversing with your clients.

[32.18] Managing risks – Managing risks is vital. Gemma shares how they manage risks and the part architecture has to play in that situation.

[39.53] Developer vs. architecture – Francis and Gemma shares opinions about the difference between an admin or a developer and architecture.

[45.00] Working with Salesforce – Gemma shares how she joined Salesforce and her journey through the years.

[49.09] Salesforce community – A community gives a sense of belonging to anyone. Gemma talks about what it is like to be a part of the salesforce community.

[55.06] Words of wisdom – Gemma shares a piece of advice for her 20 years old self.

Resources

Connect with Gemma
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/gemmablezard/
Twitter – twitter.com/ArchitechClub
Website (Personal) – gemmablezard.com/
http://www.ladies-be-architects.com/

Sponsored by Admin To Architect Salesforce Training

As the Salesforce ecosystem expands and integrates with global business technologies, the salesforce DevOps has significantly matured and grown since it started. In today’s episode of the Salesforce Posse Podcast, we are joined by Vernon Keenan to talk about the Salesforce DevOps Ecosystem and the importance of Value Stream Management.

Vernon Keenan is a Senior Industry Analyst at SalesforceDevops.net. He is an industry analyst and technologist entrepreneur who has founded businesses that use cutting-edge technology to serve customers. He is an internationally renowned Internet commerce sector analyst and thought leader. He was a pioneer in the study of how e-commerce affected the US economy. With original content and thought leadership intended to advance Salesforce app development at all levels, Vernon Keenan fills the gap between targeted market research and inspirational content. He aims to increase prospects and exposure for each participant in the Salesforce DevOps market.

During today’s conversation, we dive into the current state of DevOps in the salesforce ecosystem and what value stream mapping is. Furthermore, we discuss application lifecycle management and wrapping up the conversation, Vernon shares some sites to learn more about Salesforce DevOps.

[00.57] State of DevOps – Starting the conversation, Vernon dives into the current state of DevOps in the salesforce ecosystem along with the key difference between developing systems based on salesforce and other SAS systems.

[07.23] Value Stream Mapping – Vernon defines value stream mapping and what it is trying to do.

[13.31] The platform – Vernon talks about where DevOps stand in the ecosystem, saying it’s not a tool but a platform.

[18.55] Application lifecycle management – Application lifecycle management (ALM) is an integrated system of people, tools, and processes that manages software applications development, testing, maintenance, decommissioning, and retirement.

[22.06] Learning more – Vernon mentions some sites to discover more about Salesforce DevOps as well as a free learning resource for learning more.

Resources

Connect with Vernon

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/vernonkeenan/
Website – https://salesforcedevops.net/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/vkeenan

Sponsored by AdminToArchitect.com Salesforce Training

 

The Salesforce Architect Group in London is a local resource that enables Salesforce architects, administrators, and developers to learn about Salesforce features and partners and network with one another. Francis Pindar, Tom Bassett and Sam Wadhwan have kicked off the new community group in London and we talk about why we started it all off and what we want the community to get out of it.

Tom currently works for Trigg Digital as a Solution Architect. He has over five years of experience working with the Salesforce platform and is also a Salesforce application/solution architect. Tom’s goal is for customers to get the most out of the CRM, maximise their return on investment, and benefit from working with him. Also, he helps to disseminate the Ohana culture by giving the broader Salesforce Community support in the form of new feature ideas and responses to questions that have been posted. On the other hand, Sam is a Salesforce-certified technical architect and the Chief Technical Architect at PwC.

During our discussion today, Sam and Tom shared their professional backgrounds and the path that led them to become a part of the Salesforce ecosystem for the first time. In addition, we discuss the widespread misperceptions surrounding architects and their work and the numerous campaigns and initiatives undertaken in recent years to dispel these misconceptions. Also, we talk about how the work of an architect needs a great degree of imagination and how important it is to explain a complicated notion in a way that is easy to understand as an architect. Moreover, Sam and Tom share what they are looking forward to experiencing in the community group, in which they highlight that it is impossible to be an expert in everything, and we must narrow our focus to our areas of expertise. Furthermore, they state that they are looking forward to the community group since they believe it will aid the architect community in London and those individuals who aspire to become Salesforce Architects.

[02:20] Background – Introducing Sam and Tom.

[05:24] Architect Group, London – Sam and Tom mention the motivations behind their aspiration to become leaders of the London-based architect group.

[06:42] An Architect –  There is a stigma associated with architects and their work. In recent years, there have been numerous efforts and endeavors to refute these falsehoods.

[09:43] Creativity – We discuss how the work of an architect requires a significant amount of creativity.

[16.01] Communication –  The ability to convey a complex idea in an understandable manner is akin to an art form.

[18:18] Community – Sam and Tom express what they are looking forward to experiencing in the community group.

[20:23] Individual Contribution –  It is impossible to be an expert in everything. You must rely on others and narrow your focus to your areas of expertise.

Resources:

Connect with Sam and Tom:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tom-bassett-uk/?originalSubdomain=uk

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/samwadhwani/

Tom Bassett: trailblazer.me/id/tombassett

Sam Wadhwani: trailblazer.me/id/swadhwani

 

Mentioned in the episode:

Architect Group, London, UK

Register for Meetings/Events here: https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/salesforce-architect-group-london-united-kingdom

As time passes, organisations that are using salesforce have become more and more dependent on it. Salesforce DevOps is focused on ensuring administrators and developers can release updates and go through the software development lifecycle as efficiently as possible, with the least defects and user interruption. Jack McCurdy, Salesforce DevOps Advocate at Gearset, features in today’s episode of the Salesforce Posse podcast to share his experience as a salesforce advocate.

Jack shares knowledge of DevOps throughout the salesforce ecosystem. He has spent the last few years working with businesses to establish DevOps teams and procedures, which are essential for delivering Salesforce installs successfully and fostering both business growth and customer satisfaction. His passion is supporting the creation and maintenance of outstanding cultures that serve as the pillars of DevOps best practices.

During today’s conversation, we explore what DevOps is, what it provides people, and Jack’s experience working at DevOps. Jack dives into what common problems people want DevOps to find solutions to and how they make it simpler and errorless. Furthermore, he discusses the importance of metrics when measuring success and maturity, and wrapping up the conversation, Jack dives into how communication can solve problems and make a better workplace for employees.

At Salesforce Posse, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce Admin or Developer to an Architect.

[04.44] DevOps – DevOps is a set of practices combined with software development and IT operations. Starting the conversation, Jack dives into what DevOps is and how they help people to identify problems sooner and solve them.

[06.10] Problems – Jack dives into the common problems people come to DevOps for solutions.

[13.14] Backups – Having backups and the mental health benefits of DevOps. Jack dives into how Dora metrics are used in DevOps.

[15.58] Metrics – Jack explains how essential metrics are when measuring success or maturity.

[21.33] The phoenix project – A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim.

[22.42] Mindset shift – Role changes can be difficult in the beginning. But, with the right communication, you can change the environment for employees and build a level of maturity in the organization.

Resources

Sponsored by AdminToArchitect.com

Transcript

Francis Pindar (A2A)  00:00

Hello, my name is Francis Pindar and you are watching or listening to the Salesforce posse podcast. Now, I did catch up with somebody who grabbed me that I was chatting to. And he didn’t realize you could watch this podcast from Spotify. So if you are listening to this on Spotify, bring up your phone or your computer, and you’ll be able to see me in Technicolor. So the Salesforce posse podcast is where I speak with Salesforce industry influencers to gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce admin or developer to an architect. And a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to speak at DevOps dreaming, an event dedicated to learning more about Salesforce DevOps, so that we can deliver Salesforce changes more efficiently into production, monitor and learn from those challenges so we can improve the experience of our users and teams implementing on Salesforce. So I did a talk on my Salesforce DevOps journey, but I managed to grab some time with Jack McCurdy, who is performed gearset and is sponsoring this Salesforce streaming event. So if you’re interested in learning more about Salesforce, DevOps, or even have no idea what I’m talking about, when I say DevOps, then I think you’re gonna get a lot of value from this conversation with Jack McCurdy. So without further ado, let’s go. So I am here with Jack. And we’re here at DevOps, dreaming in London learning all about Salesforce DevOps, a maturing model of how you can kind of be more efficient as the way you do stuff in Salesforce. And you are the DevOps guru. That’s why

Jack McCardy  01:49

we had a conversation earlier about yours.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  01:55

Yeah, we did a panel. The panel discussion? I

Jack McCardy  01:58

think it was yeah, it was part of the panel. Yeah, yeah, we

Francis Pindar (A2A)  02:01

did a panel discussion, which was at was really great actually burn out in a tech and it said, yeah, there are no Salesforce gurus. No, it does not exist. The platform is just too big. And you don’t want that pressure. You don’t? Yeah, it’s a really good session. And so how’s it been? So far? Actually?

Jack McCardy  02:20

Yeah, the conference has been amazing. At gearset. Like, we’re really proud and privileged to be members as communities. So it’s great to be able to put this on and do that for them. And, you know, we take great inspiration from things like London’s calling, and all the other community conferences that we get to go to around States and in Europe, and to see that come out here as well and have it be so well attended. And London is really nice to see. And the speakers have all been amazing. So far, we’re only halfway through. But everybody’s had well attended sessions really engaged. And it has prompted some good conversation from what I’ve heard.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  02:54

Yeah. And that’s been quite interesting. Because that even like, you always get kind of stuck in the tech a bit, I think, and just kind of stepping back and kind of going well, I actually, you know, there’s other stuff. There’s the kind of the mental well being piece of DevOps around well, actually, I want to get this stuff into production quicker. From my own well being of seeing I’ve succeeded in stuff and things like that, which I kind of didn’t even really think of, I suppose. Yeah,

Jack McCardy  03:20

for sure. I think that’s one of the big DevOps can play such a big part in, in that you know, mental well being as well as we’ve all been there and late nights because of a change set or failed deployments or and you know, wrestling until 123 Am isn’t an uncommon story that we’ve heard. So finding a way to address that and help people go back to their families or be able to do their hobbies in the evening or what have you plays into that too, as well as that gratification when you see the deployment succeeded. Deployment succeeded button, the fish completes.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  03:53

So okay, so if you are if somebody is coming in this completely new and has no idea what we’re talking about, when we talk about DevOps, what would you say DevOps is? So

Jack McCardy  04:04

DevOps, when you distill it all down to the basics is really to really succinctly it’s the better way of delivering software is ultimately what it comes down to a set of practices and principles that allow for efficient, streamlined delivery. And the word itself is a combination of software development, IT operations, so was taking the best practices from both of those things, and combining it to software delivery team or Salesforce delivery team that’s really firing on all cylinders and can focus on doing the impactful work, the building of features and the user stories or

Francis Pindar (A2A)  04:40

trying to repackage for the 40th time fourth that thing into production.

Jack McCardy  04:46

Absolutely. So it’s all about speeding that process up but doing it in a safe and safe and controlled way. You know, things break. Even in a great DevOps process. Things still break that still happens, but a great DevOps process will help you identify those things sooner and hopefully be easier to resolve if it’s being done. Right. So that’s it in its simplest form, I guess. So okay,

Francis Pindar (A2A)  05:06

so what are the kind of common things that you see people call on problems they’re trying to fix using DevOps.

Jack McCardy  05:12

So a lot of what it comes down to is the pain that people experience when they have a lot of manual steps, there’s, there’s a large percentage of teams that we see have issues when it comes down to things that either have to be, you know, recreated manually in other environments, you know, you you see, to do something in sandbox. And then so many times you hear, let’s recreate it in production manually again, and you know,

Francis Pindar (A2A)  05:37

it’s like a vicious circle that I’ve been at. It’s like the deployment failed. And you know, this is hard, so they will do it manually next time. And so then your manual worksheet and steps grows and gets bigger and bigger, because always scared doing that, you know, anything other than manual.

Jack McCardy  05:53

Exactly. So either manual steps, which are tedious, even if you’re not manually recreating things in production, you’re then creating a change set or creating a package, which then needs to be redeployed to other places, you have folks that are looking to to not have speaking of lists. Actually, if you think about all the message changes that you make when you’re building something, how easy is it to forget one of those things? And by implementing a process tooling, or what have you, it’s about finding ways that you can make that process simpler and easier and less prone to errors that don’t really need to be

Francis Pindar (A2A)  06:24

Yeah, I think I did a talk earlier on. And it’s like, one of those classic problems is that, you know, developers pull out that profile meta data, but not all the fields and then you miss the field field level security in the profile, you push the profiles back, now you’ve overwritten it in your source code control. That’s right. But then you try and deploy it and the deployments fine. Just didn’t include it. Yeah. But it’s actually you know, you’ve got usability issues, because you just can’t access those fields anymore.

Jack McCardy  06:50

For sure. So and then I think if you think about those, those things, and what we’re actually talking about is actually saving people a lot of time and effort is ultimately what it comes down to is the biggest number one reason people people come to us and say, we need to do something about this is because it’s taking the 9, 10, 11, 12 hours a day, you know, for one production deployment. And they might be doing that once a week or two weeks, or if they had a long running project, then we’re talking days worth of deployment time, so literally days worth. So that’s really what it comes down to, there’s

Francis Pindar (A2A)  07:23

actually we were just talking actually, before the podcast, it’s like, do I do edit my own podcast now. And it’s like I used to do and I don’t anymore. And it was a bit of that it’s the same kind of thing where it’s like, well, it’s not what I’m good at, I’m good at the you know, in Salesforce world, doing the configuration, doing the coding, do the building, not packaging, and trying to get it into the next environment, you know, give that to some other tool or practice or a way of working, that makes everything more efficient. And also, it’s more enjoyable, because you’re doing the stuff you love, rather than trying to hack around with change sets, or whatever it is.

Jack McCardy  07:54

That’s it, we’re chatting a little a little bit earlier on about that enjoyment. And that fulfillment, it’s not just a ticket, the green light, it’s just, if I’m not doing that, then I am doing something I’m learning something new, maybe on trailhead, or what have you, I’ve got to build a new feature that I’ve not done before I can actually focus on that not worry about business as usual stuff that gets in the way. And a lot of the time that those things do get in the way, and can either either hunt for enjoyment of your job, or your ability to skill up and excel at something or learn something new.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  08:24

Yeah, I think it’s also we kind of talked about in some of the other sessions was around like constraints in the process. And actually, you can have just one thing, one constraint in that DevOps process, which even if you optimize everything before or everything after, it’s utterly pointless, because everything’s feeding through on the same track, and it’s all everything’s gonna hit by the same constraint, and you’re still going to be limited by this. And it’s a kind of a way of kind of, and that if that’s a person, an individual, just, you know, the pressure on them to get that word, seeing all this work, building up not being able to do it or responsible just for doing that packaging, and knowing it’s a complete pain, you know, is the mindfulness and the whole mental side. Yeah,

Jack McCardy  09:07

I think if you use like a real world example, I think an area that you see that most often like as a bottleneck, it’s something maybe like QA or testing, especially for quality assurance team is separate to the Salesforce team. And this is one of those things that when we talk about best practice, DevOps is not necessarily about the tools and technology, you can have the best tools and technology in the world. But ultimately, it comes down to people and how you manage people and that process of thinking about that, then, you know, your QA team, for example, don’t sit outside to Salesforce, bring those people that responsible into the team into the communications into the channels that they need to be in so that the whole team can be successful. And those bottlenecks don’t happen. The silos aren’t there. And that’s actually the probably the biggest challenge that we’re looking to solve, you know, for anybody that’s listening that’s slightly more well versed in DevOps or even does some of it themselves. You know, there’s tons of documentation or suggestions out there on version control branching strategies, or do you have

Francis Pindar (A2A)  10:03

branching at all? Is it trunk only? Is Bardsey versus Yeah.

Jack McCardy  10:08

Right. So all of that information is out there. So and still we see the required cultural shift being neglected as might be a strong word, but not as well considered or seen as less important. Yeah, showing the value of it. Yeah, exactly.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  10:22

And I think when we talk about backup in one of those zooms, and actually, for me, actually backup is a big cop can be a big cost saver as well. And so I’ve kind of used backups as well as a way of removing full sandboxes. Because I’ve got an environment that can could go into a partial backup, but obviously, limitations with that is only like 10,000 records per object. So it’s a pain in the ass to use. But the backup can restore to the maximum size of the partial sandbox. So actually, I could get rid of one of my full sandboxes, make a saving on that, get a backup, which cost less than that full backup full sandbox, and then see partial sandbox with backup data. So you’re testing the backup by seeding it in the first place by being able to restore to it and saving money on a full back full sandbox as well,

Jack McCardy  11:16

for sure that if we come back to one of the things that we’ve talked about is, you know, people’s mental health, I guess just having backup gives you that, you know, aside from what it’ll do for you, you know, your time to recover is one of the doora metrics, right? So if something does go wrong, how fast can you do that? And that absolutely is and we see it as part of your DevOps process, because that’s the team that’s going to be responsible for fixing it when it hits the fan. And it all looks bad on you ran that team. And they are exactly so we’ve actually started to see a little bit more of a shift or when we’re speaking to Salesforce teams, pulling back up out of IT ops or another team in the business and handing that responsibility back to the Salesforce team, which is great, because that Salesforce team needs to know what’s going on. And they need to know how to fix it. And they can’t just be given a chance give you

Francis Pindar (A2A)  12:05

abilities in other ways. So like one of the projects I’m working on at most got a lot of record based on thick, and actually just creating new sandboxes is just a pain because you’re essentially doing data migrations, to move conflict through. And also just creating a new sandbox is just a bit of a hassle. So actually, the backups great for that. It’s just, I’m just gonna restore those tables, for sure. Well, job done.

Jack McCardy  12:29

You make it sound like a click of a button.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  12:32

Yeah, well, I said, Yeah, it does kind of help you for certain things like that as well, which I found quite useful. So

Jack McCardy  12:38

yeah, for sure. For sure. It’s such an interesting space. And I think I think that shift in that understanding is definitely getting there. I think it’s interesting when we’re talking about backup most people or there’s a lot of people that would be like I use Version Control, I have a backup. And yeah, you do. But it’s a mess. It is a kind of, and you might not even have it all in there, which is also often the case.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  12:59

Go back to that. Profiles. Yeah, exactly. And I think if it is, it’s like, it’s a big topic. It’s a huge deal. And I think it’s also it’s quite hard, I always find it, it’s quite a hard sell initially, unless you’ve got the metrics and stuff to back it up to go, Hey, look, this is taking this amount of time it could be taking this if we just did you know, the so if somebody’s going into the what how do you see is that kind of like that progression? Through DevOps? Yeah. So

Jack McCardy  13:27

just to touch on metrics? Again, I think that’s one of the things that when we’re speaking to Salesforce teams, and, you know, how do you currently measure your success? Either they don’t, or they go, how stressed I am on a Friday, right? You know, there was a kind of the options. And I think that can be a real hindrance to them going to leadership, for example, and saying, hey, I want to buy this tool, or I want to do this, that or the other, and it’s probably going to take x amount of effort, and they go, what’s the return gonna be? And they go, I don’t know. So it’s metrics is something really important to consider, I think we see a lot more teams using the Dora metrics now, which is great. So that so looking at those things is absolutely a way that you can see your maturity rising. So there’s kind of two schools of thought on maturity, you can see that as the amount of the amount of tooling or the amount or the different types of things that you’re doing within your process. How much is automated or not automated, as this case may be, but if you look at a process, you can still have a manual process and maybe using a tool like gearset or, you know, one of the other DevOps platforms out there is we could automate it for you, but you’re still saving time by even still doing it manually, you know, so your maturity is rising, you know, is the level of effort to automate things going to be worth it? If you’re what’s the, there’s a bit of a balance,

Francis Pindar (A2A)  14:49

they kind of always come back to that constraints thing of actually, you could do it but if you’ve got another place that’s got a bigger constraint, then how’s it gonna help you?

Jack McCardy  14:56

That’s right. And I think a lot of the improvements that a lot of folks see when they first start down this road is once they start thinking about their deployments in the first place and getting the deployments but right, that time to value kind of comes down significantly from that one piece. And then it’s just, there’s just about the, I think they then find out, Oh, what if we, it’d be really good if we could do this, or that. And that’s when they will start to head down that path. And I think a lot of one of the pitfalls and common pitfalls that teams or managers can get sucked into is looking at utopia, looking at fully automated processes, and go, I want that, and have that as like the end goal, rather than, you know, appreciating that journey that you’re going on, because it’s like cliche, life is a journey, not a destination kind of thing. And, you know, the same thing can apply in this space.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  15:44

I think that’s the same for even if you look at it, as you know, the Salesforce maturity and stuff like that, you can see this whole utopian goal of chatbots, and all that other stuff. But actually, the end of it is progress, you are going on this journey, and you’ll find value in different things as you’re going through. And your worldview always changes as you’re doing it, you know, as you’re learning more,

Jack McCardy  16:03

for sure. I think DevOps is one of those things that it’s not you do this, and that’s the way you do it, it’s evolves and it changes. We do this right now. But always be looking ahead to say what’s our next thing is the way that we’re doing things now the right way, you know, always having kind of a bit of like a VA mindset, I guess about it, you know, it’s things fit for purposes, this requirement, what we needed to do, you know, always be thinking about, you know, what the next thing is for you and you as a team, and that in your DevOps process might mean, as we talked about version control, switching to a different git branching model, yes, things that you have a DevOps process set up, and it’s good, let’s assess what we need in the future.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  16:41

So even that could involve like, working with a company now that they’re getting a whole new team set up to support service cloud, for example. And if I, that could totally change the branching strategy of what you’re gonna go in. So it could

Jack McCardy  16:53

mentally new teams, I think there’s almost this notion that a couple of people are responsible for DevOps, you know, they look after the deployments or the tooling. And, and that’s kind of it, that’s their job. But introducing a new team and all members of your team, you know, it’s getting everybody bought into that, and understanding the part that they play and putting out actually putting responsibility in their hands to get their changes to the place that it needs to be for either the process to kick off or be responsible for that throughout delivery process will, it’s you know, it’s not just chucking work over the wall.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  17:23

Yeah. And that kind of understanding the, one of the things I presented earlier on was the whole, the mindset shift of what it is and people thinking, Oh, my God, you’re automating everything, oh, I’m out of a job. But it’s really not. It’s changing in the way you work. But then it’s more interesting. You’re not just doing the same thing again, and again, you’re actually working on the process and, and building it out and improving it and streamlining it. And there’s a great book that I love, called the Phoenix Project in its early I did Yeah. And it’s brilliant. It’s basically a storybook, essentially. Have you read it,

Jack McCardy  17:58

I haven’t read it. I am inspired, though. Yeah, it’s a

Francis Pindar (A2A)  18:01

cool, but it is basically a storybook on a company that is literally on its knees, I think I think literally first couple of slides saying their share prices crashed and the CEOs left or where all this kind of stuff going on. And the first 100 pages is just problem. And then it kind of shifts, and they start adopting agile and DevOps practices to really change the business around. And what I love about the book is you can spot the characters, the characters and books that are Yeah, that’s Jeff at work. And you could just see them everywhere. It really probably because it’s a story, but it’s very accessible people. So when I’m starting a new kind of DevOps journey, I start working on your company or not, there’s using using agile in a fragile way or whatever, you know, this is the book I get out and give to people because it is very accessible. And it’s just gives you an idea of the whole picture. I suppose.

Jack McCardy  18:57

The interesting thing about that mindset shift is I mentioned this in my talk earlier was those mindset shifts, and those cultural changes or routes, like role changes are can be a little fractious to begin with. And I think there’s a lot of notion these days that we shouldn’t be like, we want to please like our staff, you know, the we were speaking about it earlier, like speaking about it earlier, you know, the the talent is still scarce, it’s it’s in high demand, and there’s that, oh, we don’t want to change things because you know, they are bad, but it works. So maybe

Francis Pindar (A2A)  19:25

you know, they haven’t left. Yeah,

Jack McCardy  19:29

exactly. Right. And we don’t want to spoil the applecart. And you know, I think that’s again mentioned earlier, when it comes down to communication and say, Look, we understand this might be changes that you weren’t expecting, or might not wholly agree with, but want to buy into this vision that this is about all of us that if this is about giving you your time back, it’s not giving you some some happiness at work. And I think having that as an organization, if you have that level of maturity to look at yourselves like that and make a change and say yeah, we know this could cause this Using the short term, but the long term benefits are worth it. I think that’s a real way that you can set yourself up for success at the start of the process. If an employee leaves

 

right for the new world,

Jack McCardy  20:11

right, perfect.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  20:12

So yeah, that’s fascinate. Yeah, no, thanks so much. It’s been really fascinating. And yeah, I’ve learned a lot. DevOps has been quite good. Because I only really, from an architectural point of view, you’re kind of like, looking at it at this kind of high level. And actually, it’s been quite interesting just knowing how even just I’ve never even thought of the kind of the impact it has on people’s productivity and happiness side of things. I’ve always thought it’s just it’s a two lane problem that so it’s, you know, the both has been quite fascinating for me as

Jack McCardy  20:42

well. I’m glad picked up. Thanks for coming and, and inviting me on really appreciate it. Yeah. Cool. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Francis Pindar (A2A)  20:49

Thanks for watching, or listening to the Salesforce posse podcast now, please, please, please, if you like, or what you see or hear then please rate this podcast in your podcast player, as it tells me that there are people out there that actually are listening to this and that it’s useful to them. Also, it helps the podcast algorithms to kind of elevate the podcast in the different podcast directories which will be really helpful for me, as well. And finally, if you do have a question that you want to ask on the podcast, then head to Salesforce posse.com/message. And maybe you will appear in the next podcast, but apart from that, thanks for listening, and until next time, Ta ta.

In this episode of the Salesforce Posse podcast, we invited Quratulain Tariq; co-founder of PakDreamin’, a Salesforce Certified Sr. App Engineer at Ortoo to today’s episode we share her fascinating journey with the Salesforce community. Quratulain graduated in 2017 as a software engineer in Pakistan and expected to go into another quality assurance, but in the end, became employed by the UK company Ortoo. Then after searching for the term ‘salesforce.’ She then realised that there’s a whole community out there on Salesforce, and by joining London’s Calling DemoJam live streaming picked up the Salesforce bug and got hooked. Then she got into Trailhead and started creating her own Trailhead internal community at work.

Quratulain became a salesforce MVP; an award given by Salesforce to people with expert Salesforce knowledge who share their experiences to help others achieve in Salesforce. In addition, she collaborated in starting the Pakistan Dreamin’ event, where they had 700 – 1000 registrants, which was a great platform for Pakistani people to connect with trailblazers and different companies and countries and really did put the Pakistan Salesforce community on the global map. Pakistan Dreamin’ happened in August this year.

During today’s conversation, we dive into how Quratulain learned about Salesforce and what kind of value people can get from joining a community. Then, Quratulain shares how she became a Salesforce MVP. In addition to that, we explore Pakistan Dreaming, what it is, what opportunities it gives people, how it opens doors to another level of Salesforce for people, and more. At the end of the conversation, Quratulain shares a piece of lifelong advice to people hoping to make a career in Salesforce by saying, be yourself, don’t beat yourself too much over something, and you will get there eventually, whatever your goal is.

At Salesforce Posse, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce Admin or Developer to an Architect.

[01.45] Learning about Salesforce – Quratulain walks us through how she got into Salesforce and how she found out there’s a whole salesforce community out there.

[04.21] The value of community  – The joy of having a community that has your back in times of need and the acceptance of anyone without concern where they come from as the value of having a community, says Quratulain.

[11.45] Becoming Salesforce MVP – Quratulain shares the moment when she became a salesforce MVP and how she processed becoming an MVP.

[15.35] Dreaming events – Quratulain dives into how dreaming events are organized in the US and around the world and what value those events have for those communities.

[17.48] Pakistan dreaming – First community-led conference within the salesforce ecosystem in Pakistan.

[24.26] Advice for people starting in Salesforce – Stop comparing and bringing value to your community in what way you can as the advice that she gives to her younger self, says Quratulain.

 

Connect with Quratulain

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/salesforcequrat/?originalSubdomain=pk

Twitter – https://mobile.twitter.com/iqurattariq

 

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast

Indeed Jobs: https://www.indeed.com/

PakDreamin: https://pakdreamin.com/

Salesforce Community Conferences: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/community/conferences

Salesforce Community Events: https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtCM9L3eRjk
This episode’s a little different from the regular podcast because it is a session I hosted at London’s Calling. London’s Calling is a Salesforce community in-person event that I run every year where we bring Salesforce gurus and influences from across the ecosystem. The aim of the event is for all of us to better understand best practices on the Salesforce platform and to help build long-lasting relationships with Salesforce experts across the world that have helped so much in my career. So this session is a panel discussion on the future of Salesforce careers, the current demands, and tips and tricks in the ecosystem. We have Stuart Mills, VP of Trailhead & Ecosystem in EMEA, working at Salesforce. Vikky Moritz-Henry, a Salesforce Consultant and freelance Salesforce trainer from France and Martin Brown, a newly minted Salesforce Administrator, is talking about what he learned while getting his first job, as well as myself.
So if you are interested in growing your Salesforce career and understanding some tips and tricks and stats on the current Salesforce talent economy, then you will find some value in this conversation with Stuart, Vikki, Martin and myself.
At Salesforce Posse, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce Admin or Developer to an Architect.

Contact the Panel:

Stuart Mills: Twitter, LinkedIn
Francis Pindar:
Twitter, LinkedIn
Vikky Moritz-Henry: Twitter,
LinkedIn
Martin Brown:
LinkedIn

This episode’s guest is Johann Furmann from Berlin. What I love about his Salesforce Story is that he started as an Accidental Salesforce Admin and is now a Certified Technical Architect and has only relatively recently started learning to code on the platform in depth. He is living proof that you don’t have to be a really incredible coder on the platform to become a Certified Architect. He works with clients across the world to help support and architect their salesforce implementations following industry standards and best practices and also now builds apps on the Salesforce platform to help Salesforce admins at AdminsHelper.com.

At Salesforce Posse, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce Admin or Developer to an Architect.

Johann is one of a growing number of people that are freelancing and carving out a niche for themselves and working for clients across the globe. We talked about if Admins are Architects, Developing on the salesforce platform, and how he sees his role as an architect.

Contact Johann: Twitter, LinkedIn

Sponsored by AdminToArchitect.com Salesforce Architect Training

This episode’s guest ‘Paul Battisson’ If you are interested in transitioning from a Salesforce Developer to an Architect or COO role. If you want to awaken your inner curiosity and think more like an architect then I think you are going to get a lot of value out of this conversation with Paul.  
At Salesforce Posse, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in a career path from a Salesforce Admin or Developer to an Architect. In this conversation, I talk to Paul Battisson he is a veteran of the UK Salesforce scene and he started out as a developer at FinancialForce. He has a wealth of experience from transitioning from a Developer to an Architect and now he’s COO at Cloud Galacticos he’s also an author of several Salesforce Books. 
Paul’s Books on Amazon:
00:00 Welcome
01:22 The British Weather
03:17 Paul Battisson’s journey in the Salesforce eco-system
08:35 The Fake Cloud continues in AWS, Azure & GCP
09:50 From Salesforce Developer to Architect
12:07 The importance of Curiosity as an Architect
15:15 You can’t learn everything in Salesforce
17:06 Transitioning from Salesforce Architect to COO
19:27 Be Curious; Research, Try it and Break it 10 times.
24:30 When you have a lot of experience, people can lean on you too much
25:30 How Salesforce Roles transition as companies/Orgs increase in size
27:31 All Salesforce Admins make Architectural Decisions, they just don’t know it
29:00 The barrier to entry into Salesforce is low, just remember what it used to be
33:00 You are a God and you can go in two directions…
36:56 Moving your Salesforce org from the evolved to design & planned
37:57 Your Salesforce org is like a human body
39:25 Salesforce User Experience
40:08 Tips for moving your Salesforce org from the evolved to design & planned
42:30 Observe, Orient, Describe, Act
42:51 Use Asynchronous Processes
47:55 If you could go back in time and give yourself some when and what would it be?
50:00 Failure is an amazing learning experience
52:15 Be Curious and be willing to break things – stop and think

This episode’s guest ‘Ines Garcia’ has literally written the book on how to run successful Agile projects in Salesforce and has an incredible way of looking at the world, she’s an Agile Coach, a Salesforce MVP and is helping organisations build in a sustainable way. So they can have a positive and better impact on the well being of communities and the planet we live in.

At the Salesforce Posse podcast, we interview influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem so that we can gain a better understanding of how to excel in everything from AdminToArchitect.com.

Twitter
LinkedIn
www.getAgile.co.uk
Amazon ‘Sustainable Happy Profit’
Amazon ‘Becoming more Agile whilst delivering Salesforce’

Sponsored by AdminToArchitect.com Salesforce Training

00:00 Introduction
01:45 Why Agile?
03:14 Why did Agile come about
04:10 What are the mistakes Agile teams make?
06:00 The flows in the system. Leaving
06:46 Ines Garcia’s Origin
08:30 How do we make time more engaging and satisfying
09:00 Scrum master certification
11:20 Ines Garcia’s Books: Becoming more Agile & Sustainable Happy Profit
17:15 Where should Sustainability start? At movement, company or individual level?
19:00 How do we design things to align with nature
21:30 The Purpose Economy
23:00 How to Contact Ines
23:50 Sustainable Cook Book

Transcript

Francis Pindar 0:00
Hello, my name is Francis Pindar, and you are watching or listening perhaps to the Salesforce Posse podcast, where I speak to influencers in the Salesforce ecosystem. And in this conversation, I’m going to be talking with Ines Garcia, who I’ve known for many years. But when I first met her, she was working in the Salesforce ecosystem with a passion for Agile. But now she is not only the author of two amazing books, becoming more agile whilst delivering Salesforce and sustainable happy profit. But also she’s an Agile coach, a Salesforce MVP, and is helping organisations to build in a sustainable way. So they can have a positive and better impact on the well being of communities and the planet we live in, if you are interested in Agile, or how sustainability really can be a force of good within companies. And I think you’re going to get a lot of value out of this conversation within Ines. So let’s get on to it. Hello, Ines, and welcome to the podcast.

Ines Garcia 1:11
Hello, Francis. Thank you for having me.

Francis Pindar 1:13
Oh, great. I think God, it seems like forever since we last saw each other I think because you did London’s calling a couple of times. But it’s like since then it’s just been virtual craziness.

Ines Garcia 1:26
I think that’s Well, for us. And for many more,

Francis Pindar 1:28
you actually the talks you done at Dreamforce. All around agile, and you’re living in this kind of Agile world. But you know, there’s I think a lot of my students I have a lot of people that listen to this may use agile or in away or not heard of it before. And I think a lot of even for me, it’s like, there’s loads of different frameworks out there. And methodologies and ways of working, I suppose from, you know, extreme programming, kind of Kanban, agile scrum, and then also the kind of more traditional ones like, you know, PRINCE2, PMP. And I think it’s like all why agile, I think and what what are the benefits of it?

Ines Garcia 2:06
Big question, I suppose agile, like other names comes with a lot of baggage. What I find often when I go to help organisations and teams is that there is a sense of, they’re maybe doing Agile, but what I see and the results are not fermenting in a way that they would expect, one would expect with the principles that those frameworks bring. So in a very simple manner, what I like to do sometimes is just to drop the name at all, I tend to refer to, to our colleagues who out of what we’re trying to do here is to deliver better value do that sooner, safer, happier, at the end of the day, that’s the aim.

Francis Pindar 2:48
I don’t know, if you’re the same as me, it’s like, there’s all these different ways of doing things. But actually, you can use elements from all of them really to kind of really support what the business and the objectives of the business are trying to get out to support the team that same as you, but it can become a, I think, is quite good. Are you dropping the word agile? Because then you kind of set you in this kind of mindset of that’s the way I should be working, which may not be the benefit for the business. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Ines Garcia 3:13
In that sense, like think that this Agile has been around for more than 20 years, people that they were already developing software in different ways and the more traditional and standardised manner, they came together, they drop their differences. They let them like in the other side of the door, and they discuss what were the commonalities of the things that they were doing differently. And that’s where the Agile Manifesto emerge. And for whoever’s listening this if you haven’t checked it out, please go to AgileManifesto.org. And have a look about the about why were they there where they were trying to achieve. And so when things become trending is very easy for core of the content to dilute and I think is, if you haven’t had the greatest experience with a type of agile, unfortunately, that may be a reason of your experience. So there is a better way, and there are hosts out there.

Francis Pindar 4:09
So what are the common things that you kind of noticed when you work with companies that say they’re doing Agile, but it’s fragile, or it’s just not quite achieving? What is the kind of common things do you kind of see within the projects?

Ines Garcia 4:22
Some of the anti-patterns, I suppose we could call it is that we expect to be able to foresee the future. And if anything over the last 24 months, we have proven wrong, that ain’t going to happen. If we look at natural systems, we can get the Inspire how nature works, in a sense that nature is built to adapt to change to help storm and the trees still being able to flex. So how can we mimic some of these concepts in the way that we organise ourselves and in the way that we build the products and services that we put to market.

Francis Pindar 4:49
So Is that because the first book you did was all around agile and you’d like to talk about the Agile Manifesto and the people that came together at point, which I found out found really interesting. How did that connect into your sustainability and agile? And how does that kind of fit into the same world?

Ines Garcia 5:16
The same world, the common denominator is me. I work for myself and I struggled to put myself into a box because I have really wide interest of different things like the first product I kind of put out there was a card game makes a my love for games, because I really like board games with the work that I do with Teams. Why not? inventing is part of the process, always learning is part of the process. Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy more of the process of learning than the outcomes. And what has come more apparent to me is that the way that we behave, society political structures, the systems that we in bam, they all conceptual systems, they don’t really tangibly exist, we make them up, there are flaws in the system, unless the system is designed to leave the place better than how we found so in a very abstract way, in a very meta meta meta way, there are similarities. I come from communications background, that’s what I study, I landed in the Agile world by being interested of how others do better what they do. So I ended up working internal communication. And yes, digital has lot to do a lot of tools that the things that can help there but at the end of the day are humans problems that we are trying to solve.

Francis Pindar 6:35
So is that why you because I sort of noticed on LinkedIn you kind of you started off at Lappin, the cutting out kind of restaurant was that where you had that communication experience?

Ines Garcia 6:44
I’ve done lots of jobs in my life from promo and from my family business is a wine shop. And if you want to get to my heart, you do that also through my tummy. Lots of different jobs and I study comm See, used to be a double degree PR advertising marketing that five years and I was already working for tourism of Gerona of the city where I was studying, then I ended up working as well. For segway I don’t know if many of you will remember, two wheels one platform is supposed to revolutionise so part of my job was convincing politicians to jump into this thing of a summer in August, everybody disappears. I said to my bus, I’m gonna get to London for a month. That’s how I landed here. And I was finishing my uni the air like sometimes I will take the first plane in the morning coming back the last one at night just to present my final project and very intense. And I did all sorts of jobs because I was holding my rental flats there, my rental flats and life over here. And so all sorts of different things. And for me, it came apparent that over time, I kind of miss the big boom of social media and for our communicators, somebody that wanted to build their professional career around that, well, he was a big moment and to kind of be doing all sorts of things. So you find your pace, and you’ll find your ways to go back to do what you love. And so I ended up coming back into internal comms. And in one of the organisations that I was working, actually, they were trying to embed Salesforce into the internal tools. So that kind of came to mind. And I read a lot and I really liked to experiment sometimes with humans. In a way, that’s how we organised how can we make it more engaging? How can we make it more satisfying the time because the time that we have is perishables, we should really make the most out of it. And with that I my investigations that are raising hearing agile, do you suggest that so I borrow bids, and I try stuff with my team. Thanks to them for meant right. I think over time I come to the conclusion.

Francis Pindar 8:51
Was that based on just you learning yourself? Or did you go on training to learn agile at that point?

Ines Garcia 8:57
Yeah, at that point. And so what I decided to do is to put myself through this scrum master certification Scrum is a framework that applies some of the principles of agile and extends with some coloured ceremonies, like some touch points into your delivery cycle, to help you to align with your team help you to get better at your process, essentially, is that and so going through this motions, and then I finished there are several path into the scrum mastery, sort of professional path. And I finished that like few years ago, so there is always learning and things become more clear as more than you do at the end of the day is a practice.

Francis Pindar 9:40
Yeah, it’s not just about I always think of it as like, you can kind of functionally know it, I suppose. But that doesn’t give you a you know, you need to actually practice experiment with it, play with it, really learn it and see what works for you. And yeah, and just that kind of experience of doing it but also that kind of X Factor. turf war, I get a kick out of my burndown graph or whatever it is, that kind of drives you to improve and do better. Some

Ines Garcia 10:07
of the analogies, I think they are commonly uses. I hope I’m not like butchering the idea, but from the film of Karate Kid, where the kid is being told to watch the car, but he wants to learn karate, you just do what the master says, Do it, do it. And then those forms and those mannerism and those disciplines, they come to us later on. So in essence, it’s a bit like this practice, and then you will just get better.

Francis Pindar 10:38
Yeah, definitely. And I think also just learning things that are kind of outside of your industry or your area of expertise, I suppose I found I learned that quite early on when I kind of went worked in film post-production, you know, agile in film paths for post-production does not exist. But a lot of the concepts from agile they were using, and it was, as they just called it the film pipeline. It was just there doing the show and tells every morning show what had progressed the previous day, the wall of the time before it all got digitalized the wall of all the shots and the stages of productions, you could literally pick see, looking at the wall exactly where the film is set, but also the things that I didn’t use in my kind of coding world that I kind of picked up and kind of thought that’s quite interesting. But yeah, also actually, when I was reading your book, I’ve got them here. Actually, you’re kind of agile, becoming agile, and I haven’t quite finished. I’ve got a little way through sustainable Apple profit, but not there. But especially with your agile book, like your references to other materials, other books and stuff. That because I’m a big reader, and there are loads actually a lot of the books like yeah, just Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you know, the cornerstone, I suppose, of classic books, but there’s a couple of others that I just had never read, which I started got on our audiobook drive The Surprising Truth that motivates us. Not read, but yeah, fascinating. So what how with the books, what drove you to go watch today, I’m going to write a book, the passion of agile, what drove you to do it,

Ines Garcia 12:09
so it wasn’t a day, the session of a time when it came more apparent is that I only have certain hours a day. And I really want to the I’m on this quest to demystify like them what Agile was about, but to help others to see that there is a better way to do business, I can see that there is a commonality of the messages subliminal or maybe not. So subliminal messages on trying to fit into this content, creating a product where you do the effort once and can span in a way, way there that I could do with which I love to do anyway with articles and community conferences and supporting local community groups. And all of that I will do and continue to that is a way to extend the influence, hopefully to reach others, to give them the tools, the ability and to debunk so many myths, there is a better way to do business, there is a better way to enjoy work, and there is a better way to spend your perishable time. Let’s do it. I have fun.

Francis Pindar 13:13
I think also, especially with that always found like, especially the ground sustainability, diversity, and all this other lace kind of stuff that companies will kind of almost like go on this training course and learn this, because we need to look like we’re being sustainable and diverse. And then you come back and then but they don’t really kind of engage with actually making a change in their in their business. And I don’t know, I kind of seen like even last couple of years are kind of a bit of a seismic shift in to companies going well actually, we really need to look at a product creation process and seeing really how we can be more sustainable and more environmentally friendly, I suppose. So what from some of the from the Agile book and moving into this kind of sustainable happy profit was that just that that came about with working with companies and wanting to move and learn more about that kind of side of business,

Ines Garcia 14:03
it was a very selfish quest, where at personal level, I made changes and I continue trying to evolve in the way that I can reduce my footprint and leave the place better than how I find and it’s hard. It’s hard in terms of decisions that you make things that you purchase, or you then purchase or things that you grow yourself. So wish me luck with my tomatoes this year. So there are many, many things that we can do. And I think in general, there has been a why their educational piece and awareness piece into the wider population at the masses. And there is a common understanding at the system level at the political level that we need to change. Yet as a one person company, it was very difficult for me to translate some of these ideas into how do I run my Ltd better. So that was a very selfish question. I started, I started reading lots of things, there is a myriad of information, it can get really overwhelming loads of different frameworks, lots of different things to account for. And I took the path of talking with the organisations that they were doing things differently. Over two, three years, I had fantastic conversations, and I learned a lot from others. And some things or face some frame, some tools, some actions, I started practising, you know, I was my own lab rat, and with my own company, and in the way that I may not engage with certain industries anymore to the work that I do, every single decision that we take can leave the place better. So it’s really up to us. So knowing that this massive population is kind of aware, as a consumer, for me, it’s very difficult, I was doing a French drain because of some dumb issues in the house, blah, blah, to be able to find the right product that you see there. upcycle, or it doesn’t have big damage is really hard. So all the things that I learned and the things that I was practising if it didn’t feel fair for me, just to keep it for me, because I already published another book, I thought, Let’s reuse the framework. And there you go. In the second book, The Sustainable happy Prophet came to life. At the very end, I had this revelation of, I’m just gonna fit scope creep. I’m gonna fit the handbook at the end to help even more tangible I think we really liked like one page or two pages, because there is just so much going on. So people can quickly like refer back and look at it. So yeah, that was a big extra scope against the clock. I’m hearing good things from it.

Francis Pindar 16:38
It’s also it’s like kind of the myths of like, always drives me nuts with with your recycling your plastic at home kind of thing. But actually, it’s not recycling its downside claim, because it can only be recycled down to another form of plastic, really a park bench or whatever it may be. But it still ends up in as rubbish at the end of the line is still not really eradicating plastic altogether is great. A first step by Coca Cola, still plastic bottles, biggest waste in the world, I think for plastic, but also, I think there was a I read somewhere that was somewhere that was eliminating single use plastic and loads of people going, Oh, no, but I’ve seen those things where the youth are trying to put stuff into pots and sell it buying it. And it’s a complete disaster, but actually by governments actually saying, hey, let’s stop single use prices. Just an example, could drive the innovation to come up with alternatives that are a lot more environmentally friendly. So do you think that governments do have a part to play and it’s not just kind of companies being able to or is it literally, it’s got to come from a company base.

Ines Garcia 17:43
For me, it was the book, it was the revelation to find that we have this massive gap where politics is aware, yet has precious and some systems constraint. I’m not gonna solve our economic system in this conversation today. But there are some things that the results are way too slow, and it has low pots and they are not agile enough for the speed of change that the world deserves. at the population level, I’ll tell you my own constraints in my consumerism decisions is very tough. I can empathise, now, we have this middle saying that is a great player in the marketplace, organisations and you know what they are made up of individuals of us. And so bringing back the designers, the ones that are creating, we’re creating products, software, how the things talk to each other, how much they talk to each other, how efficient it is, how much of it with it, every single decision, it can make a difference, it has to come from within. In terms of plastic card, this is also a massive subject. Because we seem sometimes to design things for one function and designing it for one function, it misses a heap of context. So if you design plastic came about because is an easy way to store liquids, we then think beyond that, to where the materials come from. If you look at nature, a leaf has no toxicity on it, you can take one leaf out of the whole plant, and the thing will continue absorbing energy producing new trends. At the end, when it’s done its job, you will go back to the ground and it will decompose into multiple different things. It doesn’t become a leaf again. So and the way that we design things is like how can we make that in line with nature?

Francis Pindar 19:35
Yeah, it’s I think it also is that fallacy that actually doing thinking that way will be less profitable for the business. I remember there’s a company in Germany that made carpets and they basically looked at their whole supply chain and realise that all the raw materials that make up a carpet was constantly being cleaned at every different step of that process. And actually just piling Looking at all these companies that were supplying those were all materials, they eliminated a lot of waste from just the cleaning and the the materials being used. So much. So the carpets were almost simpler, leave more hair created in, in more basic such that actually, when they fitted the carpets, they wanted the customers to contact them in five years time. So they could take the carpets back to then reuse those raw materials from it to create new carpets from it, which then also helped the customer, because then took away the carpet, it all went back into the supply chain, that he got better relationships with the customer, because they can offer a discount, because obviously they’re making money off the carpet that they put in 510 years ago. And just the whole circular nature of it. And that was all driven by it all started kicked off the process when he was the German government said the wastewater from factories had to be a lot cleaner than it was and then just trying to reduce the amount of chemicals that actually resulted in better profit and a more interesting way of creating their products as well.

Ines Garcia 21:12
So yeah, and there are great stories, I think this idea of you want to cheap, good legs to actually you ended up with something very mediocre. In the work that we do. You see sometimes conversations are being very polarised and we ended up something Yeah, kind of in the middle. There are more variables. And I think when we look at the business, you can in fact deliver in a more sustainable way on a happier way. And profits will be a result, not a compromise. When I speak with CEOs and the conversations goes down into the aim of the game. The vision of the organisation is to generate more profit, I challenge that is not an organisational vision. We have a big problem over here. Why do you exist? There has to be a purpose. I think we entering in the age of purpose, purpose, economy, purpose, economy. Profit is a result a result of doing the things in a way that leaves the place better than how you found

Francis Pindar 22:15
I think that there’s another kind of as you said, it’s like the people in the masses wanting to to work for those companies that are making a difference and that what I’m doing isn’t damaging the environment. And then actually the good people that people that are what using their feet to walk to those companies, you start becoming less competitive almost just by the fact that you’re not being sustainable. And people can see that be interesting how it moves on over the years,

Ines Garcia 22:41
I help from competition to collaboration or my favourite work co-creation. When you see that all parties and everybody has a place to play, you achieve much more than generating resistant and putting effort on against fascinating

Francis Pindar 22:57
for those who don’t know where to contact you if they wanted to contact or find out our books, where should they go?

Ines Garcia 23:03
I would like to believe I miss it to find so if you go to Google in his GetAgile, so I should be out there in the community of Salesforce. We use Twitter quite a bit. So there you can find me at Zenith calm that Okay, the second one, there is a story behind One day One day we’ll have time this will be the good place to go. I suppose Amazon easy to find the books and the game and stuff.

Francis Pindar 23:30
And then you’re coming to London’s calling as well. Yes, yes. Brilliant. So if you want to meet up there, maybe there as well. So brilliant. Thanks so much. Is there anything else you wanted to shout out about while we’re here?

Ines Garcia 23:42
Well, one of my very last inventions if I may, we came together for a bit a few people from the community over the beginning of March 2020 where we start cooking things and retain each other you couldn’t really go and eat somewhere else so we start showing up look I cook this I cook that and bring something alive food is something that brings us together that all the time has become a cookbook we launch a cookbook

Francis Pindar 24:12
absolutely vegetarian one provide

Ines Garcia 24:15
Yeah, yeah, we should definitely increase our percentage of plant base is very nutritious is less footprint and many many together

Francis Pindar 24:24
because we’re vegetarians at home it kind of each of us get it at some point. But we can use our numbers Amazon as well.

Ines Garcia 24:32
Of course all profits go to nonprofit organisation that are focused to help those that they don’t have enough to eat. So trying to like bring the love of foods for the love of others.

Francis Pindar 24:44
is fantastic. Loving it. Well look forward to seeing you at London’s calling. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Ines Garcia 24:50
Thank you, Francis. It was a pleasure