A presentation at DevRel/Asia by Mary Thengvall
First, Understand the Company Goals Mary Thengvall, Director of Developer Relations, Camunda @mary_grace #DevRelAsia
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 @mary_grace 2 #DevRelAsia Ask 10 people what devrel goal is and you’ll get 12 answers! Ambiguity abounds!
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 @mary_grace 3 #DevRelAsia
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 @mary_grace 4 #DevRelAsia
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 (Wrong Answers Only) ● Vanity metrics ○ ○ @mary_grace 5 #DevRelAsia Social media statistics (e.g. Twitter followers or GitHub stars) Number of downloads
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 (Wrong Answers Only) ● Vanity metrics ○ ○ ● Work output ○ ○ @mary_grace 6 #DevRelAsia Social media statistics (e.g. Twitter followers or GitHub stars) Number of downloads Number of talks given Number of tutorials written
What’s the Goal of Developer Relations? 🤔 (Wrong Answers Only) ● Vanity metrics ○ ○ ● Work output ○ ○ ● ○ ○ ○ @mary_grace 7 Number of talks given Number of tutorials written Filling Gaps from other teams ○ #DevRelAsia Social media statistics (e.g. Twitter followers or GitHub stars) Number of downloads Technical Support Staff (e.g. answering forum questions or troubleshooting for customers) Events Management Social Media Management Project Manager for Product/Eng teams
So then what IS the goal of Developer Relations? 😩 @mary_grace 8 #DevRelAsia
So then what IS the goal of Developer Relations? 😩 In order to successfully prove the value of our work in a way that the company understands and sees as beneficial, we need to attach the main goals of the Developer Relations department to the goals that are shared by the company as a whole. @mary_grace 9 #DevRelAsia
So then what IS the goal of Developer Relations? 😩 In order to successfully prove the value of our work 1 in a way that the company understands 2 and sees as beneficial, we need to attach the main goals of the Developer Relations department to the goals that are shared by the company as a whole. @mary_grace 10 #DevRelAsia Not only, but…
What does this actually mean? 🧐 @mary_grace 11 #DevRelAsia
What does this actually mean? 🧐 Key Question: How can we support our colleagues, using our own unique talents to support their goals while still providing value to the community? @mary_grace 12 #DevRelAsia
Libby Boxes 🤓 @mary_grace 13 #DevRelAsia By using a model like Libby Boxes, established by Cornell Accounting Professor Robert Libby, we can draw a line directly from the company objectives down to the specific work output we’re working toward on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. This helps us make sure we’re working toward common company goals while serving the community. It also gives senior leadership a way to see the direct impact that the DevRel team is having on the company goals, proving our value internally as well as externally.
Libby Boxes 🤓 Concepts Inputs Outcome DRIVES DRIVES Initiatives @mary_grace 14 #DevRelAsia The top row of Libby Boxes is for the concepts, or ideas. Once you have your idea (or hypothesis) identified, now you are ready to think about how you could measure those concepts you have listed in the top boxes. In the example used below, we cannot directly measure customer engagement; how could we measure things related to customer engagement to find an answer? These are the things we would list in the bottom row of boxes: Initiatives. Top right: What outcome are we striving for? Which pirate metrics are impacted? Top left: What will help us achieve that outcome? Bottom left: How can we measure our progress toward that outcome? Bottom right: What objective measures can we put in place?
Libby Boxes 🤓 Concepts Inputs Experiments we can try Outcome DRIVES Company Goal DRIVES Success metrics / Work output (General) Initiatives Specific tactics @mary_grace 15 #DevRelAsia Libby Boxes helps us to break our work down into a few different areas: ● Inputs vs. Outcomes ● Concepts vs. actual tactics or initiatives The upper right box is the main goal you’re trying to impact. The upper left box is the general ideas or buckets of items that you think might have an impact on this goal. do to further those goals. We don’t get into specifics here — keep it as general as “create content” or “speak at conferences.” The lower left box starts to explore the more tangible side of things: what are we going to actively do to track our success? Not define success, but simply track it. Are we going to check how many times others (non-employees) have presented about your product? Or the amount of traffic you’re getting to developer-related content on the site? Lastly, the bottom right lets you establish the success metrics (this may be number of new developers reached or number of attendees at a talk — what we referred to early as primarily “vanity metrics” — to know whether or not the tactics you attempted were successful. This gives you an opportunity to easily trace your work back to the company goals. It also gives you the freedom to switch between tasks, try out experiments, decide that one particular specific initiative isn’t working as you
hoped it would, and move on to new tasks without having to clear it with your skip manager or the company stakeholders, because the tasks you’re doing are still contributing back to the overarching company goals. Additionally, if stakeholders come to you and insist that there are particular tasks you must be doing, this is a great way to figure out what goal those tasks might impact.
Libby Boxes 🤓 ⁉ ��🏻 🦱 Attend 6 meetups per quarter @mary_grace 16 #DevRelAsia
Libby Boxes 🤓 Concepts Inputs Experiments we can try Outcome DRIVES Company Goal DRIVES Success metrics / Work output (General) Initiatives Specific tactics @mary_grace 17 #DevRelAsia Back to our trusty Libby boxes we go… We now have our success metrics and it’s up to us to determine which goals these work outputs actually impact.
But why should I care? 🤷🏻♀ ● ● ● I’m not in charge of strategy… I’m not responsible for our metrics… I don’t need to tell upper management what we’re doing… … does it really matter? @mary_grace 18 #DevRelAsia
But why should I care? 🤷🏻♀ In order to successfully prove the value of our work 1 in a way that the company understands 2 and sees as beneficial, we need to attach the main goals of the Developer Relations department to the goals that are shared by the company as a whole. @mary_grace 19 #DevRelAsia Because again… If the company doesn’t see the value of the Developer Relations team, then we’re the first department to be let go, etc.
So who actually needs to know? 🗣 Inputs Concepts Experiments we can try Outcome DRIVES Company Goal (General) Initiatives Specific tactics DRIVES Work output @mary_grace 20 #DevRelAsia Individual: Work Output → Manager Lead: Work Output AND Reports on Specific Tactics (which are/aren’t working) → Manager + possibly Skip Level Manager/Team Lead (Strategic): Specific Tactics & how they’re impacting the general experiments → Manager AND Results of Experiments & how they impact the company goal → Manager, skip level, and depending on org structure, possibly SLT + Board
“What is the main goal of a DevRel team?” is a question I’ve heard for years, and every time, the answer starts with “well… it depends!” What if I told you that the main goal of DevRel — no matter what company you’re at — is to support the company’s empowerment of the developer community? From this understanding comes awareness (speaking at conferences or writing up best practices), enablement (getting started guides and tutorials), and engagement (making community members feel welcome and included). From this singular goal, you can more easily see where you fit into the broader tapestry of your company’s goals and objectives for the weeks, months, and years ahead. The end result? A stable Developer Relations team that can easily point to the value they’re bringing to the community as well as the company.
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
for free. You
can too.