Salesforce Platform Strategy Designer

A strategy needs edges. You set scope with the sponsor, shape a vision people can repeat, and identify the audience the strategy serves, so later choices have something to be checked against.

• Setting scope and its boundaries
• Writing a vision statement
• Identifying the target audience
• Aligning sponsor expectations
• Revisiting scope as you learn

You build A scope, vision and audience statement for a real or sample strategy project.

Strategy sits inside a context. You map stakeholders and their interests, study trends that affect the work, and use SWOT to organize what you learn about the organization’s position.

• Mapping stakeholders and interests
• Researching market and technology trends
• Competitive and peer landscape
• Running a SWOT analysis
• Turning findings into design questions
• Avoiding analysis without direction

You build A landscape summary with a stakeholder map, trend list and SWOT.

A strategy needs evidence that it matters. You choose key performance indicators that connect to business results, state the value hypothesis, and plan how progress will be measured.

• Choosing KPIs that connect to outcomes
• Leading and lagging indicators
• Writing a value hypothesis
• Baselines and targets
• Measuring progress over time

You build A KPI set with a value hypothesis for one strategy.

Good ideas come from the right people in the right setting. You plan and run sessions that widen the set of options, then narrow them with clear criteria so the group agrees where to go.

• Planning a session and choosing participants
• Techniques for generating ideas
• Co-creation with stakeholders and users
• Converging with criteria
• Capturing what the group decided

You build A session plan and the output of a mock ideation workshop.

Strategies fail where experience breaks. You map a customer or employee journey across stages, mark where it succeeds and where it hurts, and use the map to point at the opportunities worth pursuing.

• Choosing a journey to map
• Stages, actions, thoughts and emotions
• Gathering evidence for a map
• Finding moments that matter
• Turning a map into opportunities

You build A journey map with opportunities marked for one audience.

Frameworks help a team think, and artifacts help it share. You choose among canvases, prioritization grids and roadmaps for the job at hand, and avoid artifacts that look finished but decide nothing.

• Choosing a framework for the question
• Canvases for business and value
• Prioritization grids
• Roadmaps and sequencing
• Keeping artifacts alive after the workshop
• Knowing when an artifact is not needed

You build A strategy canvas and a sequenced roadmap for one initiative.

A good idea must hold up in three ways. You test whether people want it, whether the business can sustain it, and whether it can grow, and learn to read the evidence honestly.

• Desirability: do people want it
• Viability: can the business sustain it
• Scalability: can it grow
• Cheap ways to gather evidence
• Reading evidence and deciding
• Dropping an idea without drama

You build An assessment of one idea against the three tests, with the evidence behind each.

People understand what they can see. You build low-cost prototypes that make a strategy concrete, use them to draw out reactions, and refine the strategy from what you learn.

• Choosing a prototype’s form and fidelity
• Storyboards and clickable mockups
• Using prototypes in stakeholder sessions
• Capturing and acting on feedback
• Showing value without overbuilding

You build A prototype of one strategic idea, with feedback gathered from a mock session.

Much of the work is about relationships. You build trust with sponsors and executives, handle disagreement, and learn how to carry people with you rather than only handing them a result.

• Understanding what executives need
• Building credibility early
• Handling resistance and disagreement
• Keeping sponsors involved
• Giving bad news well

You build A relationship plan for one sponsor, with how you will build and keep trust.

A strategy only moves when decision makers understand it. You structure a story for an executive audience, present with confidence, and adapt your approach for virtual sessions where attention is shorter.

• Structuring an executive narrative
• Making the recommendation clear
• Handling questions and challenge
• Running a virtual session well
• Using visuals that support the story

You build An executive presentation of a strategy, with notes for in-person and virtual delivery.

Strategy needs others to land. You learn which neighboring roles a design depends on, such as architects, analysts and delivery leads, and how to hand work over so that intent survives.

• Roles around a strategy design
• What each role needs from you
• Handing over without losing intent
• Collaborating across disciplines
• Bringing in skills you do not have

You build A collaboration map showing who contributes what to one strategy.

Complete one strategy design. You scope it, study the landscape, set KPIs, generate and test ideas, prototype one, and present the package to an executive audience, with the evidence that supports it.

• Framing the strategy question
• Researching and ideating
• Testing and prototyping
• Assembling the package
• Presenting and defending it

You build A strategy design package: scope, KPIs, tested idea, prototype and executive presentation.