SME Engage with Product Management

The Challenge

Product Managers at GitLab have been expected to be available to answer every question, technical or otherwise, in any slack channel they are tagged, along with meeting customers at a moment’s notice. This puts a strange on the capacity of GitLab’s Product Managers (PMs).

One of the outcomes of the Subject Matters Expertise program is to allow the PMs to scale, by being the first line of experts to answer technical questions, and offer assistance on opportunities as requested by SAs and AEs.

This frees up the Product Management who can then be utilized as points of escalation, meet customers when appropriate and focus on roadmap development and delivery.

So in lieu of getting 150 requests from 150 different SAs or CSMs, if the SME program can reduce that by 50%s, PMs can focus on empowering the SMEs and answering SMEs when they are stuck.

The field team should be able to self-service most of the sales activities for selling our products. SMEs are a way to support the wider Sales account teams.

How can SMEs and PMs assist each other

SMEs assist PMs, and support the wider Sales teams by:

1. Participating in product discovery sessions and strategy workshops leveraging their domain expertise.
2. Delivering deep technical overviews and assisting on opportunities
3. Answering technical questions asked by other SAs and AEs, in the sme- channels, especially on behalf of customers.
4. Maintaining a Knowledge Base, with often asked questions with answers.
5. Contributing to documentation, go to market materials, and other sales enablement.
6. Engaging with customers to gather feedback, better understand what are the gaps in achieving outcomes
7. Collaborate in / Create issues to improve the product.
8. Spotting opportunities to expand our product offering or reduce gaps
9. Raising the feedback from the field with the PMs and EMs on a regular cadence
10. Enabling the rest of the team on the SME area - sharing new insights, updates, learnings, etc. on team calls

As part of this symbiotic relationship, we expect GitLab Product Management, as part of a soft contract, to assist the SME program by:

1. Meeting with SMEs at least once a month to enable SMEs and provide an understanding on product changes, or give updates to product since last meeting
2. Being very responsive and available to answer questions from SMEs, or get clarifications from SMEs, in the approriate sme-internal channels, so that SMEs can accurately assist other resources. SLA: We expect PMs to respond to SME’s inquiry within 4 hours in the SME internal channels.
3. Allow and give preference to SMEs, to shadow PMs, in the Shadow a PM program (TBD)
4. Enable the field and provide roadmap updates during Technical Skills Exchange sessions.
5. Provide roadmaps to customers.
6. Give priority to issues raised by SMEs as part of the Gathering Customer Feedback process. We expect PMs to meet established SLAs as determined by that process.

How to Engage with Product Management

Resist from Directly contacting PM Without First completing a SME Request.

If an AE, a SA, or CSM requests a PM, Field CTO directly, ask the requester, to first consider requesting a SME. You, the SA/ CSM can then request a SME in the appropriate SME channel.

PMs have been directed to redirect all questions to SMEs by the use of the SME Slack handles, if they determine that the SMEs were not initially engaged, and the request is not associated with any escalations, or request for product direction.

For other recommendations, please see Before Engaging or Requesting A PM Consider Requesting a SME First

When to Engage a Product Manager

In summary, you can engage PMs, as noted in the Product Management, and How to Engage Product Managers sections of this Handbook, for the following scenarios:

1. Request for a Roadmap.
2. Discussion on the Direction of the Product.
3. Feedback and Questions on Gaps in Functionality
4. Request to join a Customer Meeting to discuss for gaps in functionality, roadmaps, or future direction of the product.
   1. Please follow the Product Management process to request a Customer Call
   2. NOTE: At no time should an AE, SA, or CSA request that a PM joins a call for tomorrow or the next day, especially just to answer technical questions, or best practices. See list of scenarios above where SMEs should be requested instead of a PM.
   3. Do not just simply request a Product Manager to join a call just because the AE insists, or you have not gathered the context or done any extensive discovery beforehand on exactly what the customer needs.
5. During a POV, and you have already triaged with a SME as discussed above. This is usually the case assistance is needed on brand new functionality, or there is a need for a bug fix or enhancement.
6. During a customer escalation, once the appropriate escalation process has been followed.

How to Engage/ Escalate to a PM, After engaging a SME

PMs should be engaged in customer opportunities, with at least 48hr notice for the following scenarios:

1. Request for a PM to meet with the Customer (one time, during evaluation, cadence calls).
2. Request for a PM to Resolve issues around product gaps
3. Request for a PM for Async involvement in Evaluations (trials, proof of value)

A. Request for a PM to meet with the Customer

• Do not expect PMs to attend calls to do discovery.
• To request a PM to attend a Customer Call, you should follow the process described in “Product Joining Customer Calls”.
• PMs usually request a gathering of all customer context, filling out the PM Customer Meeting Briefing Document, and contacting the PMs in the slack channel for their group or category.

However some Stages may have a slight variation of this process, example Gitaly may require opening an issue.

See also following the standardized request process based on issues

B. Request for a PM to Resolve issues around Product Gaps

• Please refer to the SME Customer Feedback Process (TBD)

C. Request for a PM for Async involvement in Evaluations (trials, proof of value)

• SAs/ SMEs/ CSMs create Trial/ POV issues in Customer Collaboration Projects
• TBD (process to be Defined)

Other Opportunities to Engage with Product Management

Technical Skills Exchange

1. During Technical Skills ExchangeTechnical Product Managers and Product Managers to provide demos or demo snippets to SMEs for new functionality feedback.

Product Management Roadmap Meetings

1. Monthly meetings between SMEs and Product Managers to discuss upcoming releases, major new functionalities, and gather feedback.
2. Organize quarterly presentations by Product Managers or Technical Product Managers to SMEs, covering:
   • Changes in architecture
   • New use cases
   • Features and functionalities
   • Product roadmap updates
3. Establish a regular cadence for SMEs to review and provide input on product roadmaps, ensuring alignment with customer needs and market trends.

SME Slack Internal Channels

1. Product Management should also be included in SME Slack Internal channels to create a forum for SMEs to provide ongoing feedback and suggestions to Product Management.

SME/Product Management Cadence Meetings

SMEs and PMs are expected to meet at least once a month. Some PMs also conduct their own office hours. See SME/ Product Management Cadence Meetings for suggested cadence and agenda.

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