The nature of the exam – a point collection exercise

Understanding the nature of the review board exam will help you prepare for it, and will prove to be particularly valuable during the presentation stage:

• You will be requested to create an end-to-end solution and communicate it back to the judges. To do so, you will need to create a set of artifacts that will help you tell the solution as an engaging story. Your presentation should be executed in a way that will catch your audience's attention. Once you start the presentation, try to forget that you are in an exam room in front of judges; imagine yourself setting in front of a group of execs and CXOs from the company mentioned in the scenario. Forget for a moment that these judges work for Salesforce; put yourself in the right mood and mindset to present your solution to these client execs, who have solid technical knowledge about the platform and want to understand how you are planning to use it in order to solve their problems.
• The exam itself is a point collection exercise. You get points for identifying any solution requirements in the scenario. Every point counts. Some requirements are easy to spot and solve. For example, you might come across a security requirement that you can simply solve using field-level security settings. Don't overlook that or drop it from the solution story that you are going to tell. You might simply lose an easy point. However, during the Q&A stage, the judges will try to question you about the requirements that you didn't cover during the presentation. This will give you a second chance to cover them. Keep in mind that you have a limited time during the Q&A, and if you have many unidentified or non-solutioned requirements, then you could run out of time before you can cover all of them. This means losing valuable points that could be the difference between passing and failing.
• I have met many CTA candidates who dreaded the Q&A stage and I've always tried to explain that this stage should be considered as their friend, their opportunity to close some gaps caused by leaving things out, and an opportunity to express their knowledge, skills, and experience to some of the finest technical architects in the world. It is a time that the candidate should be looking forward to rather than fearing. It is true that you will be challenged and your knowledge will be put to the test, but this is exactly the moment where you can show the judges that you belong to the club – that you have got what it takes to join the very exclusive club of CTAs. You have to stay focused and be precise with your answers, and avoid wasting unnecessary time in describing things over and over again. Remember that the Q&A stage is your friend; you should try to make the most out of the available time. It is surprisingly similar to real-life presentations; the presenter will feel relieved when the audience starts to ask questions and the conversation becomes two-way instead of one-way.
• During the presentation, the judges might decide to change one of the requirements to check your ability to adjust quickly and get to the solution on the fly. Don't get nervous because of that, or automatically assume that they are doing so because you made a mistake somewhere. It is a part of the test.
• During the presentation (or the Q&A), you may figure out that you have made a mistake and decide to adjust. This is not a disaster. Don't lose your focus; the judges will also appreciate how you handle such difficult situations professionally and how you recover and get back on track. If you make a mistake, admit it professionally, explain the reason behind your early decision, and correct it. Also, explain in short how you would have handled such a requirement in a real-life project. However, keep in mind that if you make multiple mistakes, the likelihood of you passing will reduce.
• The judges are there to ensure that you have what it takes to create secure, scalable solutions based on the Salesforce Platform. It is good to let them know what you are thinking about and how you are making your decisions. This will help them understand your logic and therefore better understand the reasons behind making a decision that creates a sub-optimal solution. If you have valid reasoning and sound logic, then this will normally be taken into consideration. Most, if not all, of the scenarios you will be presented with can be solved in multiple ways. There is no one solution. The key thing to keep in mind is that your solution must be based on the right considerations and logic. This is a major skill that a CTA must have: the ability to think of the holistic solution, identify potential solutions, and rationally select a suitable one.
• Your proposed solution should be the best one you can think of from a technical perspective. You should not assume there are challenges that have not been mentioned directly or indirectly in the scenario. As an example, don't select a sub-optimal solution because you are worried about budgeting challenges that the client might have - only do this if that was mentioned in the scenario itself.
• Finally, always keep in mind that your given solutions must be presented based on the given requirements. Don't simply give a dry solution as if you are answering an exam on paper. Remember that you are supposed to be presenting to the CXOs of the client company and tie your solution to a requirement. This will attract the audience and make the overall picture much clearer. We will come across several examples of this during later chapters in this book.

Now that you understand the nature of the review board exam, let's move on and explore the artifacts you need to create in order to get solutions for the hypothetical scenario.