Technical Win

SA Technical Win

A Technical Win for a GitLab Solutions Architect is more than just a successful demo. It’s about achieving technical validation and building profound confidence within the customer’s technical stakeholder group that GitLab is the optimal and sustainable technical solution to meet their specific needs, address their pain points, and align with their strategic technical roadmap.

Definition: Technical Win for GitLab Solutions Architecture

A Technical Win is achieved when the customer’s key technical stakeholders (e.g., engineering leads, architects, DevOps engineers, security specialists) formally:

1. Validate Technical Fit & Feasibility: They confirm that GitLab’s capabilities demonstrably meet or exceed the required capabilities, operational workflows, and security standards necessary to solve their specific pain points, provide the expected quantifiable value, and drive their desired outcomes. This includes understanding how GitLab integrates with their existing ecosystem and how it solves their specific, identified technical challenges.
2. Gain Confidence & Trust in GitLab: They express a high level of confidence in GitLab’s technical solution and the the ability for GitLab to partner on their success. This often stems from successful technical deep-dives, demos, effective objection handling, and/or a successful Proof of Value (POV) or SA validated technical evaluation.
3. Identify GitLab as the Preferred Solution: They see GitLab as the clear leader or the most advantageous technical choice compared to alternative solutions or their current state, understanding the unique value proposition of GitLab.
4. Mitigate Technical Risk: Any technical concerns, objections, or perceived implementation risks have been successfully addressed, neutralized, or clearly defined with a mitigation plan that matches the significance of the concern/objection/risk.
5. Establish a Technical Champion: A key technical stakeholder within the customer organization emerges as an internal advocate for GitLab, actively championing the solution within their peer group and higher-level technical management.

What a Technical Win IS (and IS NOT)

A Technical Win IS:

• Customer-centric validation: The customer’s technical team believes the solution with address their pain points and drive their desired outcomes.
• Problem-solving focused: GitLab is seen as the answer to the specific pain points they are looking to address.
• Foundation for the commercial close: It removes technical blockers for the Sales team.
• Documented alignment: Clear understanding and agreement on the technical solution. This is provided in a POV readout and often as part of a Customer Success Plan.

A Technical Win IS NOT:

• The financial close: It’s possible to get a technical win and lose the sales opportunity based on non technical factors (e.g., budget, organizational changes, etc., poor business qaulification, etc.)
• Just a feature demonstration: It goes beyond showing features to proving direct relevance and value.
• Simply checking off a requirements list: It involves understanding why a requirement exists and demonstrating how GitLab uniquely addresses it.
• Ignoring technical concerns: It means proactively addressing and resolving them.
• Simply executing an activity or activities defined by GitLab It’s a process of building trust and customer-validation throughout the consideration phases of the customer journey. Specifically, Scoping and Evaluation.

How to Know When You Have a Technical Win

Stick to the definition above. The most effective way to validate a technical win is to ask the customer direcly. For example:

• Can you confirm that our solution provides the required capabilities needed to achieve your goals?
• Is GitLab your preferred solution?
• Are there any outstanding objections or technical concerns that would prevent you from adopting the solution?
• Do you have confidence in GitLab as a partner to help you achieve your goals?

It’s ok when we can’t get an official technical win. We still can win the opporutnity. Understanding technical win status will help us to improve how we help our customers pre and post sale.

As a best practice, capture the relevant technical win information to track our progress. Here is a template you can use to do so.