CTA Study Planning

So you've made the gigantic decision to go forward and prepare to become a Salesforce CTA. Well done! Taking the effort to formalize your architecture experience with the Salesforce CTA badge of honour, is a great hallmark to achieve in the Salesforce ecosystem and it is great to have the courage to take part in the journey. As I always say, the journey is more important than the outcome, because it is the learnings from the process that you will apply day to day in your job, and necessarily the CTA stamp itself. So lets have a look at what a CTA journey typically can look like:

Step 1 - Salesforce Domains Pre Study

Step 1 involves going through each of the materials which are listed on the Salesforce Architects Trailhead site, and taking the time to meticously go through each article in detail. This is the fundamental wisdom that will build your Salesforce base, and to be a better architect your baseline must be strong. I spent a lot of time reading the articles here. Sometimes we think we know something well, and then you find a nugget inside of an article that you genuinely did not know. Hence, be humble and go through these articles, because likely it will boost your knowledge, even if you felt you knew something well. So here is the link to what you need to study. Again I re-iterate, go through each item. The most important thing to do here is make notes. These notes will become your study materials in shortened form, that you will revise daily to ensure your memory of the technical content remains strong. This is IMPORTANT!

Baseline Study: CTA Study Materials

Step 2 - Application and System Architect

As you are going through the study materials, complete the pre-requisite architecture certifications for the CTA programme to become an Application and System Architect. By taking notes along your journey, you will have killed 2 birds with 1 stone and have revision notes ready for final board preparation.

The pyramid below highlights the certifications that you will need to obtain.

Step 3 - Baseline Mock Exam

Sit a baseline mock exam with a CTA coach. If you are fortunate to be working at a company with an active CTA coaching programme then make use of someone's time to do an initial early mock. This will let you know up-front what gaps you have in your knowledge, and where you need to brush up over the coming months. There are many areas that may come up as areas of improvement:

• Writing skills
• Presentation skills
• Story-telling skills
• Communicating technical ideas in an easily understood manner
• Clear diagramming
• Domain knowledge
• Solutioning in unison, considering all domains

The early mock is useful to give you an indicator as to where you stand and where you need to improve.

Step 4 - Practise Community Mock Exams (3)

After completing the baseline mock and getting your feedback, it is time to practise a couple of other mocks whilst you polish your delviery approach and framework. This will not only give you more practise, but also build your confidence that you can solution in a short timeframe and give a comprehensive and complete solution as well. This will be excellent preparation for the initial assessment that Salesforce have now introduced as step 1 for the CTA examination process.

Step 5 - Salesforce CTA - Initial Assessment

Being judged by a CTA is always a daunting experience, but treat it as a learning experience. CTAs are architects specialists in the Salesforce space, with knowledge and experience that will help make you a better architect. Their feedback and question/answer sessions with you will give you great exposure and preparation for the final review board. Treat this early feedback as a great opportunity to polish up in areas where you may still be lacking to be a rockstar for your review board. Remember as CTA coaches, and judges we endeavour to get you over the line, hence treat the feedback as measures to make sure next time you do well.

Step 6 - Review Board Training

So you've passed the initial assessment, now what? How should i study? In what order? How long do I need to study? Well, let me share with you how I did it in my time:

You can see here the study cadence that I followed for the Review Board training in the final few months. Each week I would aim to study at least 3 of the Salesforce domains, and aim to attempt at least 1 mock exam (myself). As the board date neared, you can see that I upped the number of mock exams I would practise myself to 2-3 in that week to ensure I am fully board ready, comfortable with my presentation approach and in a fit state to present at the review board. There is no one-size-fits-all but if you are wondering on how much/often you should study when preparing for the review board this should give you a very good indication. I used to spend at least 1-2 hours daily in study, between 7-9am to do so, and spent the majority of my weekends doing CTA study as well. If you have a supportive partner it makes it a lot better :-), thankfully I did.

In this phase, aim to do around 5 mock review board exams with a CTA judge where possible. There are some options here, if you are wondering how you will get hold of a CTA:

Flow Republic: Offer a good coaching programme

In House Programmes: Larger GSI's will run their own in-house CTA programmes

Private CTA: There are some nice guys out there who will offer their assistance too to maybe do a mock with you - reach out and ask.

Step 7 - Review Board

You are now ready, go nail it. In a separate article, I will summarise my approach for the review board, stay tuned, as this is a golden gift.

Conclusion

Once you have completed your domain training, made revision notes and passed the necessary baseline certifications I would give yourself 6-12 months to become board ready, go through mock exams, become great at CTA style presenting and finally go on to rock the review board. I hope this article lets you know what the study path looks like to become a CTA :-).