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July 09, 2020

Innovation - SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT : Launching a Process Innovation program for a cloud company

Courtesy of Salesforce's Byron Tatsumi, below is a transcript of his speaking session on 'Launching a Process Innovation program for a cloud company' to Build a Thriving Enterprise that took place at Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards.

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Session Information:

Launching a Process Innovation program for a cloud company

While there are many presentations on continuing to grow and enhance process/continuous improvement programs this presentation provides unique insight if you want to understand how to create a tailored program from scratch with no top-down mandate.

Salesforce, a global cloud company, launched a Process Innovation program in 2017.  During this session hear from Salesforce’s Process Innovation leader about how the company focuses on Operational Excellence (one of the company's strategic pillars) and has used Lean Six Sigma and continuous improvement approaches to scale, staying agile, and enabling digital transformation.

Key takeaways of the session include: 

  • Creating a program tailored to company’s culture.  This covers assessing culture and process maturity (understanding current state, leading process projects), test and learn program building (tailoring process innovation approaches), and utilizing of own company’s products and other cloud tools.
  • Mobilizing commitment.  This includes finding and gaining support from process advocates, creating community of practice and launching recognition and rewards.
  • Lessons learned.  Key items you should consider if you are considering launching a program.

The speaker for this session, Byron Tatsumi, is a senior director at Salesforce and leads the company wide process innovation program.  He has more than 20 years of industry and consulting experience in strategic planning, business process improvement & transformation, business operations, and strategic sourcing. He has a strong background in strategy development and business plan implementation and considerable program, project, and change management experience.

Session Transcript:

Thanks for coming to the afternoon session i'm byron ted semi senior director with salesforce i lead their process innovation continuous improvement program so a little bit about myself i have a combination of working for large scale companies.

I've been with like General Electric master black belt there worked at Bank of America and I also worked in consulting companies and throughout that time I've always at least when the results are related to process innovation or a process improvement continuous improvement programs I was joined when there was a established or a large program already there and so when sales were called me and said hey we want you to help create one from scratch.

I jumped at the chance because it's a unique opportunity where not many people get a chance to really start something from scratch and also having a chance to work for a global cloud company and hence this is my story and perspective in being able to get something created from scratch here so to start with really what I plan to cover is really three items one around how we created a tailored program here for Salesforce based upon our culture and I'll talk a little bit more about how the culture is pretty unique at Salesforce.

Second talking about mobilizing commitment because mobilizing commitment is a really critical piece of success for any program to get off the ground and three talking about lessons learned so the program itself just a raise of hands how many of her over you Salesforce okay so looks like guys recap we're a major customer relationship management provider and really what's I think unique about this company.

It's a very fast-growing cup it's got over 34,000 employees we continue to drive and move growth at at double-digit space so it's unique compared to maybe other companies that have continuous improvement where maybe other companies are more focused on like cost-cutting and layoffs and offshoring versus were focused around how do we scale our processes because we're trying to grow so quickly and be able to support not only them on the front end but also on the back end so before I be able to talk about Salesforce let's culture.

I need to talk to you a little bit about well what is sales versus culture and values so if you look on the left hand side this is really about sales forces what we call values those really four key values the first one is all about trust making sure that our customers trust us with their data because they're using our platform to run their critical processes and services and so Trust is always number one the second is around customer success we aren't successful if we're customers very successful so that's the second value the third is around innovation.

We try to innovate in all different parts of the company but one example is we release three releases each year of new products and features to all of our customers so that's just an example of innovation and then the fourth is around equality and this includes everything from equal pay to diversity in other aspects as well on the right hand side.

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You'll see from our CEOs perspective what is unique and what we focus around from a Salesforce culture and this includes and I won't touch them all all but some of the key ones that are applicable is like the first one beginner's mind going in especially if we're working with a customers being open minded and taking a listen view and really understanding.

What is going through their particular situation another key one is around customer first as kind of rent relates to the back to the value to customer success the third one is unique Ohana and it's a Hawaiian word as Salesforce takes a lot of Hawaiian theme and words and that really means family and when we mean Ohana that means our customers our partners.

Our employees so we're all together working together as one Ohana or family another key part is what is mentioned as trailblazers so trailblazers are our customers and partners that are going out there and working with our products and kind of leading the trail or blazing the trail and and how we work with them another key one is around celebrations.

We're big and recognition and rewards and then the last one giving back Salesforce is known and our philanthropy bottle it started at the very beginning of our company it's called one one one which means one percent of the employees hours we give back and volunteer to our nonprofits of choice we give one percent of product back so we give licenses to nonprofits and then one percent back to hood equity so we provide grants to various nonprofits across the globe as well.

So Dave taking another level down when we talk about the culture about Salesforce as it relates to continuous improvement and process really wanted to focus on a few cultural elements that we really took to heart as we built the program so four unique things that are really critical to Salesforce and when you think about process improvement, process design.

Process is the first one is around growth yeah this is really a fast-moving fast growing company so how do we have the right process methodologies and tools to support from a growth oriented standpoint and being able to go deliver things fast and quickly.

The second is around quick win focus management doesn't really have an appetite for projects that takes years so what can we deliver quickly in weeks or months the third area is around Salesforce terminology and I kind of shared some examples like ohana trailblazer but another great example is just traditional terms that you've all probably having companies whether you're calling it HR ite or Finance is another example that we don't use and sales force instead of HR.

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We call it employee success instead of IT we call it business technology instead the plans we call global business operations again just another example of how we have different terminology and being able to making sure that when we create this process innovation program it's really tailored to what will resonate with our Salesforce employees unless one is around fun Salesforce is big in terms of having fun so we need to make sure our program is we create that is really fun and engaging on the right-hand side in another key area that we took a look at before building the program is what we call process maturity.

So as I went in and being able to talk with various executives and leaders looking at different elements about how mature our processes are and this includes the areas of things like leadership are we doing structured problem-solving are we do we have process governance do we have process frameworks are we looking at from an end-to-end scope and are we looking at things truly from a customer business impact and kind of the net summary at least a couple years ago.

When you know going through this was there was a lot of tribal knowledge and there is a lot of ad hoc approaches and dealing with continuous improvement so that was kind of like this the starting line in terms of just assessing okay well where we are and where we're at and where we need to move toward so based upon that we went on a journey and we first actually.

When I first got hired on didn't even you know create a program from scratch first spent about the first year just running projects testing different methodologies and tools not calling things like de Mayock or Devon to find for design for Six Sigma but just utilizing different approaches and tools to see well what would work or potentially work here at Salesforce and then after that year or during that time who then launched our first process Council and what a process council map for Salesforce was basically the first time were different individuals representing different functions across the company to come together and share.

What are they doing around process process programs process projects and so on because before that it was all again tribal knowledge everyone just kind of doing their own thing and so on along with that we also launched her first knowledge management system so again the first time ever that one place that you can share process element examples tools project examples and so on about things process related because again before that it was all just done within silos within the different functions and then after kind of building projects and going through this we then we're able to then create and pilot our first what we call process Trailblazer program and process Trailblazer program is the equivalent of I would say a Six Sigma Greenbelt program.

So we did this and I'll double click more into that and so the next slide but after that we then went and used one of our Salesforce products what we call trail head to provide more self-service learning because we recognized as you know different folks want to go through not all one can attend and deliver on a project so others that may be interested or not sure you know what they're involved in can actually start with the trail head module to begin with and then last would continue to iterate and update based upon feedback so to kind of double clicking in terms of what this process Trailblazer program looks like.

We start out at the left and we had high potential employees and a lot of these folks we have identified through their managers through different functions and they need to have already coming in too before they come in through training to identify a process project they need to do again another unique term that Salesforce uses is called v2 mom which represents vision values methods obstacles measures and it's basically our annual goal-setting process and that's what every single person of the company has to have and as part of that align their process project to what's something that they have to do is part of their what we call our VT mom.

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So because there's a ready business routine in place we've leveraged that and then connected that before they enter what we call our boot camp and our boot camp is a three day course that they go through process management and process improvement and design and then from that they actually lead their process project and then from there process project they also get weekly coaching from someone on my team through that and once they complete their project and deliver business impact.

They then get certified and then they get reward and recognize from that and then the hope is that they continue to can deliver and work on other process projects and so opens they're continually like a champion and what we call her a process Ohana or family kind of double-click a little bit about well what does that mean in terms of potential role once they complete the program whether they're in sales or customer assists or other functions hopefully they can continue to be optimizing designing critical processes maintaining a library of critical functional processes leveraging company-wide best practices and also providing some process awareness coaching about well where do I go for resources or where do I go to get some additional training.

This is a give you sense of kind of what that process trailblazer programmed that boot camp I was referring to what the three days look like again most of it is focused around process definition and management as well as improvement and design in other companies you know I wouldn't have had to deal with like process definition management it was already kind of ingrained in in the companies but coming and looking at Salesforce we needed that base those base layers and those were critical as well and then we also engage in some safe but fun learning and what we call a process simulation so we have a process simulation each day and also have other fun things like group exercises knowledge assessments during the days.

Then another kind of productive thing they also get to do as they get a work on their actual process project during each three days so on day one they get to work a little bit on their charter day two they get to work on their site walk day three they get to work on their project plan so not only are they learning about their methods the methodology the tools they can actually apply some of the things that they're learning during each each of these days as well this is giving you a sense of the the folks that we've gone through we've got a 130.

That we've gone through about a year and a half now and so from the 130 there's 44 that have completed and completed the product project of getting certification it's important to also mention as part of sales versus culture we're big and using their own products our customers ask us all the time so how are you Salesforce using your own product.

So I just wanted to highlight three examples of how we use our own products from a process innovation program standpoint the first one is around as a kind of mentioned trailhead trailhead is the product for self-service learning and so we've launched back in September the what we call sales first process fundamentals module about what are the basics about what is process why should you care where do you get a power to given additional resources and we just launched earlier this week the next module called process management what are the basics of you have a process today that you're running what are the expectations that you should have things like you should have a site POC you should have a process flow what was that look like.

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So on we also launched a community cloud so community cloud is really powerful and being able to interact with various groups or subgroups that you have in this case we use this for each of our boot camps we have a separate community cloud for every single boot camp session and they're being able to then track and understand and collaborate through that different that particular community cloud and then the last product that we use is quip which is a productivity tools the equivalent of Microsoft Office or like the Google Docs.

We use that to track all of our different process trailblazers or candidates as they're progressing through the project and knowing where they are what are the next steps that they need to progress to for their particular project the next or second item that I wanted to mention that's really critical as part of this is mobilizing commitment and for any program it's really key to success and the way do we did it is we looked at all three different levels of the executives managers and individuals and it's kind of mentioned earlier on as we're kind of running in just testing projects.

It was critical to just figure out well who are those advocates who are those individuals who were those executives that really got process and to help work with them to help seed and check you know what would work for the program what participants that they would recommend from their teams that that would make sense to help participate.

So on so this was a really critical piece to have the success of the program and it continues to be a key success today because just the the power of the word of mouth of the program because if we publicly mention this program across company we didn't have like a waiting list probably three to five years and that wouldn't be fair to the individuals so all of this in terms of additional participation and sign up is getting all driven by word-of-mouth so our portal mobilizing commitment is building a community of practice around those that are passionate about process.

So the ways we've done this ability of that community is we have a separate committee chatter group call process of haaa or a process family anyone in the company areas allowed to join and they'll hear about the the recognition and rewards that we're doing they're hearing about you know what are various folks working on project and so on it's kind of mentioned earlier we also have that knowledge management system so you know examples of process tools.

Whether it's a fishbone or process capability or site bog examples of process projects and then having a process counsel mentioned before is a forum where folks across the company that are involved in process work can come together and share best practices and so on recognition and words is really important too and we've established this throughout the program great examples as like throughout the trailblazer journey.

When they're in the boot camp we do recognition through the knowledge assessments so the top people that score the the highest for the knowledge assessment you see them what Salesforce swag on the left-hand side that we do each day another example is when they complete the process projects but you can see in the middle we have plaques we got some grade Salesforce jackets we take them out to lunch and things like that another great example was on the far right hand side where we just launched in November.

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A process innovation competition and it's available for anyone in the company but if they've done a process project that's used a in industry approved methodology they go through a series of senior executives as you can see this individual going through and have a significant monetary prize so it's great in terms of recognition and reward about great process work going on.

So I wanted to last talk about is some kind of perspective in terms of lessons learned as now helping to stand up and launch this program so the first is around really focusing on your advocates can't stress that enough because that will really make or break your program and it's been wonderful to have the backing of senior executives and managers and individuals at all different levels helping to propel that and getting the confidence and that's really helped see the additional individuals that continue to ping us literally on a daily basis about well.

How do I get into the next session or I've got this great process project or seeing the the lightbulb go off from others of oh yeah there's so much easier ways that we can work smarter here in addressing these problems as we're trying to scale the company the second was around leverage social service training I kinda like to mention before you know we had you saw the slide for the number of folks that have gone through the three-day boot camp and go through projects about 130 well.

So September we launched that self service training the first module and over a thousand have completed that and it's growing so that's just an example of the scale leveraging skills social service training where anyone in the globe at anytime can go and just take that it doesn't replace the in-person training but it's a great supplement and helpful for that the third we're big on using appropriate methodologies so not having just one size fits all but having the right methodologies for depending on the particular project and what you're trying to address so example if you're doing an improvement project then you know Six Sigma might make sense.

If you're doing a design one designed for Six Sigma but there are other cases where literally the process isn't on fire and you can't afford to do atom a ik so you know let's use something like
PDCA a plan-do-check-act if that's appropriate so having the the right methodology for based upon the situation and problem is really critical another key one especially for Salesforce is providing company and function specific examples in Salesforce they didn't want to know about you know show me a manufacturing example of a sidewalk don't show me even one it's a high-tech of another company.

Show me one about how we did this in Salesforce for root cause analysis or you know how do we do this in business technology or infrastructure engineering on how we did this particular tool or this particular approach so early on as convention the earlier projects that we did we kind of leverage those as examples but as now we've got more and more Trailblazers.

That have completed those projects we now lift and leverage those examples back into the training so there's many many many examples that are very Salesforce Pacific that helped resonate and connect with the participants the next one there's a lot of low hanging fruit a few especially if you're launching a program like this for the first time.

So I would say you know don't worry about trying to focus on the more complex things because there's a lot of basic things that with you'll get a lot of significant impact similar to what we found and then the very last one this year and market broadly the wins that's another key area where there are so many people that are trying to run fast and there's a lot that may not know about what's going on and it like spreads won't like wildfire as they learn from their peers and others about the work that these Trailblazers are doing and it works well to help reinforce the the recognition about the folks about what they're doing and around the program.

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So that is pretty much what I had let me just stop there and see if there's any questions yep it's the firm that you talk about is a three to the department's in essence how do you say it's a free service the it is there is no cost to from a function to participate the the requirements are it has to be approved by their manager and they have to have a process project prior to entering so it's competitive to enter but there is no closed battle and then another one in your first slide you talked about getting everybody a process council and getting everybody on the board any tricks on how you because in the large company getting people on board is always like adventure yeah.

So I kind of mentioned earlier focus on your process advocates the Chicago function by function department by Department look at the ones that really get me you know there may be some key people that might make sense and maybe that person when you go to maybe no not necessarily fully on board or maybe now resistant so maybe go to the second or third person in that particular department that really gets it.

So it may not be the the primary person that you know you're thinking of and that particular department so that's really why you want to focus on yeah those that really get it or think that you'll be on board and usually after after later on you'll see the others that will net naturally want to join but not necessarily the initial people that are always a hundred percent the the right people that maybe call it either motivated or yet yeah exactly well the trigger.

I think was just based upon different discussion by senior executives to saying oh my gosh you know we're we're so big but we are operating not like a scale company should be so we need to start implementing something but they weren't sure exactly what that something was and so that was really kind of the trigger point good question.

So we do have innovation where there's like process design so great examples are some of the earlier process work that we had to do some processes have just been built over say like duct tape and just patched together over say 16 17 years and executives would say you know for that particular process especially if its customer facing we just need a scrap it and we need to help we need help from you guys helped reimagine.

What is it that we should look like so in that case that is true process innovation the other part of the the reason why we use that particular word innovation is kind of back to Salesforce terminology the term innovation is more connected or relate better within Salesforce and so while it's not to your point not know 100% all innovation.

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We do also you know continuous improvement process improvement and process management that helps connect to the audience that you know yes a little bit about how you're resourcing this function where you follow up in the organization and possibly your your your scale and growth so until recently like a couple weeks ago I was reporting into what they call global business operations it's now just switched over to one one new group still would then tell that with that the CEO.

It's called corporate planning and continuous improvement so now I leave the continuous improvement part of that group in terms of actual coaches around that we've got total of four that we've got in expecting to grow a lot more yeah yeah related to project management process management in terms of Education does Salesforce actually have a module as in within Salesforce those product itself or your okay yeah so there's a tool that our customers use that's provided by through Salesforce.

It's called process builder so that may be something you might want to check into and if you have any more questions and just check with your Salesforce rep that can help ya connect you to the right resources yep are you going after an impact and number of employees you know reach both looking in terms of dollar impact and that looks at it both from whether it's supporting at the top line or out the bottom line and then also in terms of people that were certifying and making sure that yeah we're talking to those any other questions all right well thank you for your time.

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About the Author

more (16)Byron Tatsumi,
Senior Director, Process Innovation,
Salesforce.

Byron Tatsumi is a senior director at Salesforce and leads the company wide process innovation program.  He has more than 20 years of industry and consulting experience in strategic planning, business process improvement & transformation, business operations, and strategic sourcing. He has a strong background in strategy development and business plan implementation and considerable program, project, and change management experience.   

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