The Whiplash Effect of The AI Revolution

Which is why...

We're stopping ADC.

So. A few of you already know this because Piyusha and I have been telling a few people in DMs, but it's time to say it properly: we're not continuing the ADC Bootcamp. 😕

I know, it's a hard thing to admit it out loud (especially since I've done a small pivot already 😔)

The rough journey so far

When we thought of this and began designing it, Agentforce was the thing every partner was scrambling to staff for. 🤖

Why not build something to help admins find use cases for Agentforce, prepare business cases and ROIs and persuade leadership to run small pilots?

How about helping them understand what it's like to 'orchestrate' agents to look after people and teams and the platform itself?

Piyusha would teach the technical build.
I'd teach the discovery and consulting side, and together we'd put together someone a genuinely useful shortcut into the ecosystem.

Then during TDX, Salesforce debuted headless 360, and it dawned unto me we don't think a bootcamp on Agentforce is the useful thing anymore. 😭

Here's what I think - and it's something I shared privately with a few of you who have reached out to me: is that the Agentforce roles that matter are going to go to people who already have deep platform expertise.

Especially those who have been laid off in the last few rounds of redundancies.

They've done the work, and have scars to prove it. 

So we'd be building a course for people who would find it an uphill battle to actually land an Agentforce role, well not straight out of the gate anyway.

💔

So we decided to stand down. 

And I took some time to think about where I am going with things.

I am still in delivery as a fractional technical project manager and the two projects I was on got pretty intense, especially heading towards UAT and go-live, so a break was welcome.

AND during these projects, I got to see first hand what AI is doing to people in delivery, and it's a bit concerning.  

Resources like BAs and project managers and testers were trimmed mightily. Because "you can do it with AI." 😵

Meandering conversation transcripts were chucked into an LLM to spit out woefully substandard (actually pretty yuckitty yuck awful) user stories and requirements 🤮

Soo bad. 

Requirement and diagrams that are weird and nonsensical while seemingly to be vaguely in the right direction. 👈🏻👆🏻👉🏻 😒

It feels like in the race to be more 'efficient' and 'productive' by using AI, common sense have flown out the window.  Along with standards of excellence.

So much time is wasted trawling through poorly written documents trying to get certainty and trying to pin down who said what where.

And the muscle and the real skills of doing the craft is being lost.

RAR! 😡

That made me mad!
Mad enough to do something about it!!

Zagging when everyone's zigging ⚡️

I think there's a need right now to go back to basics.

Go back to in-person 'old school' ways of doing things so we can learn how to do the thing, correctly.

It's got pens. 🖊️
Paper. 📄

People learning to visualise process maps and getting used to drawing boxes and and lines on a sheet of paper. 

Somebody halfway through a role play, stuck, because the question they'd planned to ask doesn't fit what the "client" just said, and they have to actually listen and think of a new one on the spot instead of moving to the next bullet on their script. 😬

I want to teach the human skills that you can't get that from a video course, and you definitely can't get it from Trailhead.

That's what the IRREPLACEABLE workshop programme will be.

Old-School in-person workshops that goes back to basics.

Three five-day workshops, in person, in London - Human Skills in October, Business Analysis in November, Project Leadership in December.

Just human skills of communication that is critical in project delivery - skills that was true before Agentforce and will still be true whatever comes after it: 

📌 How to actually listen in a workshop instead of waiting for your turn to talk.
📌 How to draw a process map that a client can follow without you in the room.
📌 How to run a show and tell that gets someone to say yes instead of "let me think about it," 
📌 How to hold your ground with a steering committee when the CFO is asking you to justify a number you believe in. 

Conflict, power, politics, the lot.

I'm not going to pretend this is a normal newsletter and there's no plug at all - there's a link below if you want the dates and details.

I'm telling you because everyone's zigging toward the same AI certifications right now, and I think the smarter long game is to zag.

If you're worried about being replaced in the AI revolution (it's already upon us and we can't stop it), then this might be something to think about. 

Whether you sign up for my workshops or not - lean into and go deep on the skills that don't get automated, while everyone else is queuing up to learn the ones that might.

It's the first one I am doing in-person though, but I think it's important and very necessary - especially right now.

More on all three workshops soon.

For now - if you've got questions about why we pulled a stop to ADC, just DM me. Also if you are interested in that in-person London workshops, or if there's anything you'd like to see.  I'm almost finished on the curriculum design, but am open to suggestions!

Anyway I am now packing to go up Machu Piccu with the fam.  Hope altitude sickness doesn't get us like it did in Mt Kili!! ⛰️ Wish us luck!

Until next time!
Pei x

#OnThePeiroll