Dirty processes are okay. A dirty Org is not

I’ve heard this sentence countless times. And as an architect, I’ve been guilty of saying it myself:

“Before we fix Salesforce, we first need to clean up the business processes.”

Responsibilities need to be clear. Exceptions need to disappear. Everyone needs to know exactly what they’re doing. Then we can build a clean solution.

Sounds reasonable, but I don’t think it’s realistic, because I have never worked with a business that had perfectly clean processes. Business is messy because humans are messy.

As I like to tell my nephew when he asks me a question that has no logical answer: "Humans are just strange."

And businesses are made of humans. There will always be that weird exception for car loans in Portugal. The special SLA that only applies three days after Easter in Western Germany. The customer who still needs a completely different approval process because of a contract somebody signed in 2014.

Of course, simplify these things where you can. Challenge unnecessary exceptions. Make responsibilities clearer, but don’t expect the business to become perfectly clean before you clean Salesforce.

I actually think the opposite is more important:

"The messier your business is, the cleaner your Salesforce org needs to be."

Because complicated business processes built on top of a clean Org can still be understood and changed but complicated business processes built on top of a messy Org become chaos.

So stop blaming “the business” for your dirty org, let the business be a little strange.

Our job as Salesforce professionals is to keep the foundation clean enough to handle it.

Disclaimer: Yes, Processes should be as clean as possible.