Center of Excellence
Create Playbooks Governance with a Center of Excellence Group
A Center of Excellence group is a cross-functional group responsible for the administration of the Playbooks platform and strategy. They are responsible for communicating changes to the platform and strategy as well as key metrics attained or missed. They are Playbooks experts and lead the charge on best practices for all Playbooks users. If you think the name sounds too pretentious, call it a Play Committee, Playbooks Task Force, or whatever best fits your culture and identifies to all Playbooks users the critical role of this group.
Who is in the Center of Excellence?
The Center of Excellence should be made up of representatives from Sales Operations, Marketing, and Analytics teams. The Playbooks Administrator should absolutely be part of the Center of Excellence. But make sure the group doesn’t balloon too large. Keeping this group small is best, even for large enterprise customers. 3-6 members is the recommended size of any Center of Excellence.
Frontline representatives, both sellers and managers, are not part of the decision-making body of the Center of Excellence. Instead, they should be given the crucial task of providing actionable feedback to help improve Plays and ensure relevance to the selling motion. This should also be a relatively small sample of all Playbooks users, 10 at most. Consider representatives from different locations and cultural backgrounds.
It is strongly recommended to only include Playbooks champions in the Frontline Representative’s group. They should gather feedback from the entire range of detractors and advocates then synthesize the perspectives of their peers. Including critics of the platform in the Frontline Representatives group is often counter-productive.
Center of Excellence Put into Practice
We invited one of our customers to talk about their Center of Excellence group at our NEXT 2020 User Conference. They had several tips for setting up a successful Center of Excellence.
Here’s a few tips from the break-out session:
- It’s crucial to have someone from “the business” in the group. Operations and Admins cannot crate and strategize in a vacuum.
- “Round tables breed innovation. Let them feel the endorphins of contributing.”
- During the rep and manager interviews use a health dose of empathy and understanding to find out why they don’t like it.
- Start a WALL OF SHAME. Own the failures and mistakes so you can grow from them.
- Pick two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track Playbooks success and only two. “Find ’em and stick with ’em.”
- Even through Frontline Representatives are responsible to report back to the Center of Excellence, Sales Operation and Enablement are still on the hook to sit and observe users. Nothing can replace the opportunity to know how users are using the platform.
Additional Resources
Download and use the Center of Excellence Overview slide deck to help build out your group and educate Playbooks users on what a Center of Excellence is and does. It includes many sample slides for your to quickly customize to your own Playbooks strategy. We also recommend taking the Play Maker Course for more information on all Best Practices.
