Product Customer Advisory Board

This is the process for quarterly customer advisory board meeting, specific to the Product / R&D Org. This process is revisited on an annual basis and aligns with the broader company process focused on customer advocacy.

Product Customer Advisory Board Charter

The Customer Advisory Board (CAB) deepens our partnerships through collaborative engagement, gathering actionable insights that enable customers to directly influence product innovation alongside our internal teams. This forum embodies our values of iteration and results for customers by investing in key account relationships while ensuring our strategic objectives meet customer needs.

Objectives

Strengthen Customer Accounts: Create a structured environment for meaningful collaboration with our most strategic and active partners. Understand Customer Sentiment and Needs: Allow GitLab team Identify, discuss trends and challenges in the DevOps space. Customer Opportunity to Influence: Enable customers to have direct communication with product leaders early in the development process, empowering CAB members to shape product strategy. Results for Customers: Demonstrate clear value through roadmap iterations that align business objectives with CAB member feedback.

Customer Benefits

  1. Insider knowledge of the direction of the product roadmap

  2. Opportunity to influence product direction and give direct feedback to key decision makers within GitLab

  3. Foster relationships with individuals within product and UX at GitLab

  4. Network with peers in the software industry and gain insight into best practices

  5. Opportunity to work with GitLab marketing team to showcase your company as a key customer partner

Presenter Guide + Instructions

Presenter Guiding Principles

  1. Product Focused Highlights: All presentation materials should be focused on products we plan to launch or evaluating products we have available to customers. Information can be applicable, but should always circle back to the product, gathering customer insights, and demonstrating product value.

  2. Emphasize Dialogue over Monologue: Structure your presentation to encourage meaningful two-ways discussions. Take pauses, plan specific talking points, and actively seek input.

  3. Prepare Targeted Questions: Develop 2-3 specific, through provoking questions to engage members in conversation. These questions should be focused on presentation, strategic decisions GitLab is currently grappling in your stage that you would like to gather customer feedback on, or a question related directly to customer workflows. These questions should not be able to be answered with a simple ‘yes or no’. We reccomend not to focus too much on hypothetical scenarios that can be difficult for Manager+ to answer since our CAB community are not ICs directly executinf the work within GitLab.

  4. Connect to Previous Feedback: Reference previous feedback you have received from advisory meetings in the past. This will help illustrate to CAB members the value of their time and that GitLab takes their recommendations into consideration. Be as specific as possible (within reason) about what actions were taken as a result of feedback.

  5. Prompt Follow Through: Document key insights and actions items during your session. Your team is responsible for finding a note taker with appropriate context.

  6. Be Prepared: Be sure to prepare for the meeting ahead of time independently. Please be prepared to share slides as we will not meet as a team to run through the whole presentation to ensure different ways of working are supported and to ensure team effeciency.

Timelines

Please note: All publish dates are dependent on CPO Approval

Artifact Collection Start Date Approval (CPO) Publish Date
Agenda 8 week prior to meeting 6 weeks prior to meeting 5 weeks prior to meeting
Meeting Invite 6 weeks prior to meeting N/A 4 weeks prior to meeting
Presentation 5 weeks prior to meeting 1 weeks prior to meeting 24 hours prior to meeting
CAB Agenda + Brief 3 weeks prior to call N/A 24 hours prior to meeting
Customer Follow-up 24 hours post meeting N/A 48 hours post meeting

Edit This Page

Do you have an addition or an update you’d like to make? Please reach out to Michaela Seferian-Jenkins, CAB DRI to collaborate!

Last modified April 30, 2025: Create Customer Advisory Board Page in Product Handbook (Update file customer-advisory-board.md) (144ac8d9)
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