Spotlight Series: Adrienne Cutcliffe, newest LBA Ambassador!

Adrienne Cutcliffe grew up in Brisbane, Australia and is a Consultant with over 6 years’ experience working with the Salesforce Platform. She is a Women in Technology Group Leader, Salesforce Lightning Champion, and Undergraduate student at the Queensland University of Technology. At Dreamforce we asked Adrienne to join the Ladies Be Architects team as an ambassador, spreading the word in the Land Down Under, and we were thrilled when she said yes! Here’s her story!

Adrienne was raised in a world of IT, with her father working in the industry since he was 17 years old. She always loved the idea of IT, however, office after office full of men never gave her much confidence in securing a career. Adrienne has been a serial learner since a young age, with tertiary certificates in both Information Systems, and Tourism and Education; a Diploma in Childcare; over 360 Trailhead badges; 7 Salesforce Certifications; 5 Conga Certifications; and a mostly completed Bachelors in Information Technology, learning is what she loves to do. In her spare time (it does still exist) Adrienne loves playing video games, watching TV, building Lego, paddle boarding, and spending time with her (and anyone else’s) pets.

Tell us how you heard about Ladies Be Architects?

“I had briefly heard of both Gemma, and Ladies be Architects before, however it wasn’t until I met and presented with Gemma at Dreamforce 2018 that I got to learning more about it. After that I got really interested in this world of female CTA’s (heck, just CTA’s in general) and the journey to get there”

What feelings did Ladies be Architects inspire within you?

“As someone who has ever felt ‘good enough’ in the career they were in (even being told so by less than supportive individuals in the past), I wasn’t sure that this was something I could do. Then I remembered all the other things people had told me in the past that I couldn’t do, and boy did I do them! I realised I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, and possibly, maybe I could prove some more people wrong about me on the way”

Tell us why the CTA journey is important to you...

“The CTA journey to me is all about proving myself that I can do this, that this is something that I can achieve for me. When people ask me how good I am at Salesforce, or what I do, it’s proof that I know who, and what I am, and I’m damn good at it.”

What’s the next step for you on your Journey to CTA?

“To get Application Architect certified in 2020, and defeat my arch nemesis, Platform Developer I. I have tried PD1 and failed three times now, it and I have some unfinished business, so watch this space!”

Spotlight Series: Sharayu Sable

Sharayu is Australia’s first female CTA! We caught up with Sharayu shortly after she got the news that she’d passed her CTA board exam.

Sharayu is a Technology Delivery Architecture Manager at Accenture, leading large enterprise implementations of Salesforce. Sharayu got her start in the Salesforce world in 2011 coming from a developer background, with experience in Java before picking up Apex.

When did you decide you wanted to pursue the CTA credential?

Towards the end of December 2017 I started pursuing the Salesforce architecture domain certifications. I completed all of these (including the optional certs) by September 2018, and that’s when I knew I wanted to continue on to achieve the CTA.

I got involved with Accenture’s internal CTA program and did a mock exam in early January 2019 which is when I put my full focus on studying for the CTA exam.

How did you prepare?

I studied mornings, evenings, and on weekends. The last three months leading to the board exam were quite stressful – I tried to wake up at about 4-4.30am three times a week to study before I went to work.

Most of all, I tried to apply what I was currently studying on the project to get hands on experience. The biggest advantage that helped me was the role I was playing on a current project – Lead Salesforce Architect. I think some people struggle with not having the right role (to support them in their study) but the Lead Salesforce Architect role was perfect. I felt like I was learning, and applying a lot of things on the project which really helped.

Taking mock exams was also really important for my exam preparation. I did around 6 mocks altogether.

Lastly, I asked for help. Whether it was a colleague at Accenture or a CTA in the Salesforce community in general, I would reach out and ask for 30 minutes of their time. People helped in a variety of ways, from reviewing and providing feedback on my artefacts, or just chatting about topics where I felt my knowledge was weak. Everybody’s journey and experience is different, so I could listen to everyone and ultimately, turn that into something I would feel comfortable presenting to the board.

Did you have any other commitments around the CTA?

Yes, my family – especially my husband. When I started my CTA journey, I warned him that this would be time consuming and he was really supportive. All up, my studies took about 18 months – that’s 18th months of my husband taking care of everything, including running up to the local Office Works to get me flipcharts and supplies to help me practice. He spent a lot of time by himself on weekends.

My husband isn’t in the IT industry, but he would sit on the couch while I presented a mock solution to him. He provided feedback on my presentation style, like letting me know when I was speaking too fast – although I consider that a strength, because you have so much content to present in the short 45 minute time frame the board exam gives you. Sometimes, he would fall asleep, but I still found the practice valuable.

Sharayu with her husband

What did you learn from the process?

Passing the exam has made me much more confident in my abilities as an architect. I feel comfortable speaking to other architects who have years’ more experience than me.

Throughout my journey, my colleagues have asked me, “how were you so calm before the exam and after hearing the results?” I know people go through a lot of stress, but my mantra was to stay calm. I put the CTA exam in perspective – I just wanted to learn, and grow as an architect. Obviously I wanted to pass, but I treated it all as a learning experience.

How do you feel about the experience?

Overwhelmed! I’m definitely happy as well, but it’s a little stressful, there’s so much attention so I feel a bit restless. It’s amazing – but I don’t think I have absorbed it yet. People have said, “wow, you’re the first female CTA in Australia!” To me, I’m still the same person, I just passed an exam. The learning and growth took a lot longer.

I also feel relieved, I’m sleeping so well! I have so much free time I don’t know what to do with myself. I am taking it easy for now, spending time with friends.

The learning hasn’t stopped, either. I feel some pressure to keep on top of the constant changes happening with Salesforce products. I’ll keep studying and reading to keep my skills sharp.

Any myths you would like to bust?

Well, there are some rumours that are true, and others that aren’t.

When you present your solution in the exam, the judges don’t nod, they don’t show any expression on their faces – that is very true. It feels quite different to presenting to a customer in the real world, because customers will have questions as you go, they will nod, or show a reaction – positive or negative.

I finished my presentation early, and it’s true, they do take those minutes and add them to the Q&A time. The Q&A is a daunting aspect, but it’s there to help you. I think the judges understand it’s nearly impossible to come up with a perfect solution in just 2 hours. Chances are, you will have made some mistakes due to running short on time. The Q&A tests you, and gives you an opportunity to clarify any mistakes you might have made and show your knowledge. The Q&A felt more like a normal customer presentation, where we were having a conversation rather than just me talking.

While I come from a background of development, with experience in Java and Apex, it’s been about 5 years since I really did any development. I don’t think I would be the best developer now! I don’t think you need to know how to code in order to achieve the CTA, but you definitely need to know when and why to recommend a code-based solution. No one will actually ask you to form an HTTP request in the exam, but as long as you know how you would overall structure your design, you can stop there.

What advice would you give to those who are working towards the CTA?

The CTA is not a theoretical exam. You need to consider – how would you actually apply the solution practically, in a real-world project? You may not always be able to get hands-on experience on a real project, but when you’re studying, try to think about when you would want to use a particular feature in a solution. When would you use indexing vs. skinny tables? Big objects, or external objects? What are use cases for each solution? This applies to every single domain, there are always so many ways to achieve something in Salesforce.

Getting hands on experience will really help, and you can use Trailhead or Developer Edition orgs to get that. Earlier in my journey, I found Identity a really tough domain – I had heard of OAuth and SAML, but I didn’t know how they worked. I got some hands on experience by connecting two Developer Edition orgs, I focused on this topic and now this domain is one of my strengths.

Have an attitude of always learning. Talk to your colleagues, or people you connect with in the Salesforce community, if you haven’t got experience in something – perhaps they do. I spent time talking to everyone from developers, to scrum masters, to product owners.

How will you be celebrating the achievement?

I took a week off after taking the board exam, so now I’m back to work after a short break. I feel like I’ve been away from work for a long time! I do plan to go on a short holiday during the December break with my husband.

Mostly, I just want to do some good work and try to apply all my learnings on a project, and help out some other aspiring CTAs that may need my help. It’s not that I know it all now, but I will have some tips that I learned on my journey that may help others. I haven’t read the latest release notes so I will be doing that, too.

Sharayu with some colleagues at Dreamforce

Spotlight Series: Jannis Bott

We first met up with Jannis at TrailheaDX in May 2019 – and we’re thrilled to share his advice and CTA story with you all. Jannis is German and settled in Sydney, Australia.

As a practice partner for solution engineering, innovation and incubation at System Partners, he leads a team of Solution Engineers and acts as a strategic advisor and Salesforce product expert to some of the largest, most complex enterprise customers in ANZ. Jannis is married and has a young son.

Tell us you how got into working with Salesforce

I think like many others I did not make an active choice to be part of the Salesforce ecosystem and rather fell into it. When I made the move to Australia in 2010, I was offered a sponsorship to head up the IT department of a firm that primarily worked in the not-for-profit space. Just before I joined, that company chose Salesforce as their CRM and it fell into my patch to figure out how to implement it.

Back then I worked with an implementation partner to help us with the implementation. With my growing knowledge of the Salesforce platform, we started to take on more of the administration and development in-house, all the way to the point where we were building mobile apps on top of the platform. I eventually hit the ceiling in this organisation and moved into the consulting world where I worked on much larger enterprise projects and worked my way through the ranks from consultant, developer to architecture roles. I worked for larger implementation partners as well as a contractor and for ISVs, which gave me a chance to see many different challenges and solutions build on the Salesforce platform.

What was your background before Salesforce came along?

I was running a small software company with a few friends that turned out to be more successful than we ever expected. We founded the business early on in our careers and developed basic cloud software for schools. I was heavily involved in the product management and go-to-market strategy before I received a call from the army to request me to attend the compulsory military service in Germany. I declined national service and had to do a year of social work instead, which I completed at the Red Cross – driving organs and blood donations. I was set on studying medical science and becoming a neurologist surgeon after the year of service and I decided to go to Australia to travel and explore the world before starting university.

For obvious reasons, the trip to Australia changed all of those plans entirely.

Why did you decide to pursue the CTA certification?

The biggest reason was to challenge and push myself to achieve a rare certification. I was conscious that the journey would provide a tremendous amount of value due to the level of detailed knowledge that is required. I knew this would make me a much better architect, regardless of passing or failing. Despite the fact that I had 10 years of professional experience already when I passed my CTA, I felt that, prior to passing, I didn’t always get the same respect from peers or customers immediately, due being a younger architect than other enterprise architects that I worked with.

I saw in the CTA the credential that removes those doubts and gives me credibility – right from the first meeting.

What did you do to prepare during the ramp-up?

My first line of action was to open the setup menu in my Salesforce developer org and to expand every single section. I then looked at each menu item and if I did not know immediately what it was for, I added it to my study list. I also started to ask myself questions about certain topics and then drilled down deeper and deeper – for example: What does 2-way SSL actually mean? How do I set it up? What is a CA-signed certificate? What is the difference between public and private keys? How can I use certificates for inbound or outbound integrations? How do I create my own certificate? etc. I think my biggest challenge was to “not know, what I didn’t know”.

To get around this I found my amazing study buddy – Chris Baldock. The two of us jumped on calls at the weekends to ask each other questions around a specific topic and gave our best answers. I found this beneficial because when I wasn’t able to explain a topic well, it was very likely that I had not fully understood it. Trying to explain such topics to somebody else really helped to identify gaps. Lastly, I did a lot of sample scenarios to get my approach, my timing and my messaging right. Again, Chris was a fantastic person to do those mocks with because I always got honest and direct feedback.

How long did it take?

I started preparing 6 months before I attempted the board. In the first three months, I focused on expanding my knowledge and studying all areas of the platform in detail. In the next three months, I got into a more regular cadence with Chris and started to do mock exams, whilst still diving deeper into certain knowledge areas.

I had a partial pass, whereby I passed all sections except System Architecture. I gave myself another 8 months before attempting the retake, which I used to give myself a break and recharge the batteries before I went into further study.

Take a moment to acknowledge your allies – what did they do to help you and what was the impact?

There are three people that come to my mind immediately. Chris who I mentioned before already was extremely supportive in getting me ready for the board and because he was going through the same experience it felt like we are in the same boat.

The second person to acknowledge is my incredible wife who gave me the emotional support, sacrificed weekends we would normally spend together and just gave me general coaching to keep my feet on the ground and my mind focused.

The third person is Suzanne from Salesforce, who, especially on the exam day, gave me great emotional support and helped me to focus on the immediate next step in the exam (e.g. “take 15 minutes now and clear your head, next you will present, remember to tell a story…” etc.).

You worked full time and were also completing two masters degrees while you were passing your CTA – how did you manage the pressure and your time during the ramp-up?

To be honest I am not sure when I am looking back now. I did about 40 hours of work and another 30 hours at uni in the evenings and weekends. I was very focussed and tried not to waste time by procrastinating and doing useless “googling” or watching random youtube videos. Instead, I had a clear study plan which outlined what I needed to cover on which days, in order to hit the date of the board.

My support network played a vital role in this and I recommend to everyone attempting the CTA to make sure that this network exists and that expectations are clearly discussed and agreed prior to getting started.

Tell us about the day of your exam…how did it go and how did you feel?

I think like everyone else I was nervous. Especially because I had not seen anyone else that passed the CTA before in how they present and hence had to go with the approach I prepared. I tried to manage my fears by telling myself that I had prepared for this for a long time; I know what I am doing and that ultimately this is just another test. The exam itself was challenging, I had a pretty long scenario (~ 9 pages including cover letter and index) and was really challenged for time.

When I left, I was certain that I failed and hence when I received the message a few weeks later about my partial result, it was a real motivation booster. For my section retake, I was a lot less nervous and knew what to expect. I also felt much better prepared and actually finished my preparation with time to spare (which I used to ensure that I didn’t miss a requirement).

After I left the Salesforce office, I walked to my hotel. 10 minutes into my walk I got a call from Suzanne including all the judges who congratulated me on passing – this was a very special moment.

What advice would you give to aspiring CTAs?

Give yourself time and be really clear on why you want to become a CTA.

Being a CTA doesn’t mean you are a good architect.

Not being a CTA also doesn’t mean that you are a bad architect.

It will take a significant amount of time to prepare, hence knowing your reason as to why you are doing it helps in times of doubt. Also, don’t rush it – it is a journey and the journey should be enjoyable, but is also necessary because your knowledge needs to be wide and you must be able to go deep at any given time and topic.

Lastly, ensure that your knowledge is backed by experience – I have seen a few candidates attempt the board who have a fantastic knowledge of the Salesforce platform but lack the practical experience to make the right choices.

What changes have you noticed in your job since you became a CTA?

It opened a lot of doors for me. I got out of it what I was after – credibility.

I moved from being a contractor back to an employee at a solution implementer after passing my CTA because I wanted to share my experience with other community members. This opportunity only came up because I was a CTA and provided in many areas a purpose to me.

How has doing this affected you as a person and a Salesforce practitioner?

The intense study period has made me a much better Salesforce consultant, developer and architect. By simply studying all the content in such detail, I closed many knowledge gaps and also feel that when I talk to customers now, I am considering the impacts of solutions that I would not have considered or known before.

Any other tips and advice for the community?

Definitely find a study buddy – it’s crucial to have somebody that you can share successes and failures with but also somebody that can learn from you and you can learn from. There are a lot of supportive people in the community that are willing to help – make sure you come prepared when asking for help (e.g. have a study plan ready, know your realistic timeframe, know your reason etc.) and don’t expect to be hand-held throughout the process – you need to be the driver.

It’s always better with friends! We were thrilled to have met Jannis at TDX 19 – thanks for supporting us and sharing your views and experience