How to Simplify Project Management w/ Automation | Stanley Black & Decker | Simply Put

If I ask my daughter what do I do, she says, all I do is Salesforce. Salesforce. Salesforce. Simply put, I design and build solutions on Salesforce platform.

Well, kids are really good at this simply put thing, huh? What's up, y'?

All?

I'm Emmanuel Acho and this is simply put. Over the next few minutes, your burning business questions are gonna get clear, direct answers. Today's topic, building solutions fast. I don't usually picture architects building whatever they design, but solutions architects like Lakshmi Chawa, Stanley Black and Decker have to master every step of the process from idea to execution. She's gonna drill into her process for us. Then after that, Ali Yadke, a senior product marketing manager at Salesforce will show you how to turn Lakshmi's advice into action. All right, enough build up. Let's build out. Go ahead, Lakshmi.

My name is Lakshmi Chawla and I'm a solutions architect at Stanley, Black and Decker. I grew up in India. I moved to states in 2012. From a developer to a senior developer and now an architect. Salesforce has always been my first choice of platform. Before, we were always following a waterfall approach and it wasn't agile and there were a lot of frustrations from the business side and we thought, how can we address that? Harnessing the power of the platform, which gives agility and scalability. I think that truly brought everybody together. I have a technical background, but you don't have to have a degree in computer science to do Salesforce. We have so many people in Stanley, Black and Decker who do not come with the technical background, but they are able to come on the same table, present their ideas and co create with us, which is really powerful. You can drag and drop components and build a beautiful algorithm. You can actually see things taking shape in front of you. For example, connecting Power BI and Salesforce. The result was so overwhelming and everybody was overjoyed seeing their reports right in front of them. It was, it was fantastic. I tend to think of myself as a flow nannic. I can automate anything. As a solution architect, my job is to make sure that I understand how the product is going to look like from the beginning to the end. So those diagrams, those flows are first documented into a design document and those are then presented to the developers. And the developers also utilize tools like Lightning, Apps Builder or workflows. Those requirements and those technical solutions are clearly defined for them. We use continuous integration tools like Jenkins to automate our Salesforce testing. We use sandboxes like developer sandbox, partial copy. Getting through that journey, that's when the code moves to production.

Phonetic. I like that. And in that spirit of going with the flow, I think it's time to cap off Lakshmi's story with our top three tips for helping your teams build fast. We got Allie Yadke here to help turn our advice into tangible steps.

I've been waiting the whole episode for this. Let's go.

I love that attitude, Ali. Okay, tip number one. Automate. Automate. You guessed it. Automate.

You can't say it enough. Automate. Every seamless experience has a process behind it. Whether it's onboarding a new hire or getting approval for additional inventory. We're surrounded by workflows. And automation makes everything easier. Use tools like Flow Orchestrator to make complex processes simple. Lakshmi and her team can build together using clicks to create different stages for any process and have different approvers weigh in as they go. When their team needs to work with a new vendor, they can get approvals quickly without the usual runaround. Doesn't that sound nice?

It sure does, Ali. So tip number two. Build better together.

Ever try to build a treehouse alone? It's not easy. Building solutions with a team works better too. Solutions that range from clicks to code let everyone jump in. Developers can use the tools they know best to write JavaScript code and create custom components. Business teammates can use those components to solve different problems using clicks, not code. Tools like App Builder let you create dynamic pages that share data with the right teams at the right time. For example, Stanley Black Decker employees can check inventory by warehouse in a map component. They built this internal feature without any code. There are countless ways to make the flow of work easier. You can automate manual processes so teams can focus on their customers instead of repetitive tasks. Now if we could just automate. Emptying my inbox. What's next, Emmanuel?

I'm gonna talk to someone about those emails for you, Ali. Alright. Tip number three. Be transparent. Win trust.

Transparency is essential to everyone's success. Yours, your teams, your vendors and your customers Earn the trust of all of them with a solution that makes sharing data and sudden changes easy. Look at Flow and Slack Together, they help teams alert new vendors on project status with automatic updates posted to the Slack Connect channels. These channels are shared between your company and the third parties you work with. Teams can even collect data directly from partners in Slack this way, bringing Autom right into the conversation. We're all in this together. Technology should reflect that. Well, that's all from me. Let's see if Lakshmi has any final words of wisdom.

I'm an artist at heart. And I. Whether it's with the paint or brush or with, you know, combining different technologies together to build beautiful platform or solutions, I think that's what I like the most. And Salesforce helped me do that. I'm Lakshmi Chawla, and you're watching Simply put.

Okay, hear me out. Hear me out. How about a bonus episode with painting lessons from Lakshmi? Let's make it happen. Now. There's one more episode left. And did someone say employee success? Well, we got it covered. Next time, click over to the next video. I'll see you there.