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9 Essential Mental Models in Developer Relations

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This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may still be relevant, but please refer to official documentation for the latest information.

Developer Relations (DevRel) is the glue that bonds developers and organizations. Successful DevRel professionals become experts in fostering community, which benefits both developers and organizations, and drives positive outcomes for all stakeholders involved.

Below is a list of mental models often employed by DevRel experts. Which one speaks most to how would you approach developer relations?

1. The Empathy Circle

Empathy is a cornerstone of DevRel. Understanding and sharing the feelings, thoughts, and perspectives of developers is crucial to building trust and strong relationships. The Empathy Circle is a mental model that reminds DevRel professionals to actively listen, ask open-ended questions, and practice radical empathy to gain deep insights into developers' experiences.

2. The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

The Pareto Principle, often called the 80/20 rule, suggests that roughly 80% of results come from 20% of the causes. In DevRel, this can be used to identify which developers or communities have the most significant impact on your products. By focusing efforts on the most influential groups, DevRel professionals can maximize their effectiveness.

3. Inversion

Inversion is a mental model that encourages thinking in reverse. Instead of asking, "How can we get more developers to use our product?" DevRel professionals might ask, "What could make developers NOT use our product?" This approach helps identify potential roadblocks, allowing DevRel teams to proactively address issues and improve the developer experience.

4. The Ladder of Abstraction

The Ladder of Abstraction, introduced by Bret Victor, is a mental model that helps DevRel professionals communicate effectively. It suggests that information can be presented at various levels of abstraction, from concrete to abstract. Understanding where a developer is on this ladder can help you tailor your messaging to their specific needs and expertise level.

5. The Innovation Adoption Curve (Rogers Adoption Curve)

The Innovation Adoption Curve, also known as the Rogers Adoption Curve, classifies users into categories like innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. DevRel professionals can use this model to identify where different developers fall on the adoption spectrum and tailor their strategies to meet the unique needs and concerns of each group.

6. The Hype Cycle

The Hype Cycle, developed by Gartner, describes the stages that new technologies go through, from the "Innovation Trigger" to the "Plateau of Productivity." DevRel professionals can use this model to understand where their products or technologies are on the curve, and adjust their messaging and strategies accordingly.

7. The Feedback Loop

Feedback is crucial for improvement. DevRel professionals should view feedback as a gift and a source of valuable information. The Feedback Loop mental model reminds them to actively seek, process, and act on feedback from developers, whether it's positive or constructive criticism.

8. The 10x Developer Myth

The 10x Developer Myth is a cautionary mental model that encourages DevRel professionals to recognize that not all developers are equally productive. Treating all developers as if they're the same can lead to misunderstandings and frustration. Instead, acknowledge the diverse range of skills and experiences within the developer community.

9. The Trojan Horse Model

The Trojan Horse Model encourages DevRel professionals to find creative ways to introduce their products and ideas to developers without making it feel like a sales pitch. By creating value and solving real problems for developers, you can gain their trust and loyalty over time.

Conclusion

DevRel professionals play a crucial role in bridging the gap between developers and the products they use. To excel in this field, adopting these mental models can be transformative.

By fostering empathy, leveraging the Pareto Principle, and using other models, DevRel professionals can navigate the complexities of their roles and make a lasting impact on the developer community and their organizations.

Remember, the mental models are tools, and how they are applied makes all the difference in creating meaningful connections and driving success in Developer Relations!

Best of luck to you, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about introducing a successful DevRel program in your organization.

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Intro to DevRel: 5 Reasons Why DevRel Teams Fail

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But, DevRel is about breaking barriers and building bridges, so, in leading by example, we demonstrated our technical knowledge and now have a strong impact on all the teams.” Michael Liendo, Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, an online platform by Amazon that provides scalable and cost effective cloud computing solutions, shared how he was able to find the company culture fit within organizations he has served in the past. Being in a position of Developer Advocacy, and quite literally trying to advocate for developers that use the platform, he says, “Some of the biggest challenges for DevRel are actually internal. Engineers at many companies often focus on one piece of the product. As they're testing features, they may be creating workarounds without realizing they're workarounds. This means they often miss what a proper Developer Experience flow looks like. I've had to push for them to include me in design meetings, and get them to understand that I'm the Lorax I speak for the community! A phrase I have been known to say is ‘this solves the problem, but it's not a solution’. I'm known for having a high bar for what is considered ‘good enough’ and though the end result is accumulated trust, it's a challenge to get there.” 3. Operating in Isolation DevRel cannot operate in isolation without integration with development, marketing, product teams, sales, or a subset of these. The team will struggle to make a significant impact. DevRel requires a collaborative approach and alignment and synergy with other teams. 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If DevRel does not have any goals set, they can only do their best to assume what efforts they should invest in to provide value to the organization. Worst yet, if they do not have any goals set, they may not choose to focus on providing value to the organization, but to a community that the organization has no interest in. Many DevRel experts have seen this happen time and time again in the community, and are always left scratching our heads. Many times, the “strategy” for an organization is to hire DevRel, but that is where the strategy stops. Decision makers want DevRel professionals to come in and just “do what they do best”. Unfortunately, when decision makers say this, they typically have an idea of what outcomes they want DevRel to drive, but don’t want to share those thoughts because they feel like DevRel professionals should know what to do. Expectations left open to interpretation often lead to a poor impression of the performance of the DevRel team by decision makers, and those teams are never able to establish a sense of trust or direction within that organization. Jeremy Meiss, former Director of Developer Relations at CircleCI, says, “One of the biggest problems we have seen in this industry is the startups that were counseled by their VC, founders, or board that they need a DevRel team because the other similar companies had one and it was great for them. They push for it, and one of the early hires is DevRel. Generally, that DevRel hire is someone relatively new in the industry, so you can coax them to start at a new company without clear goals or objectives. New hires like this come in without a lot of experience in the field of DevRel and have not experienced it at different levels of companies. They are heavily pushed by marketing, the CEO, the CTO, and other departments into thinking DevRel should look a certain way, but don’t have the foundational knowledge to be able to push back because they are not yet in this area.” Jeremy’s illustrative explanation of why a lack of strategy ultimately results in the failure of a DevRel team within an organization is one that is common across many devtool startups that have popped up in recent years. 5. Lack of Metrics and Reporting A well rounded set of DevRel metrics typically comes from multiple areas of the organization, whether that be marketing, sales, product, customer success, or customer support. Without free access to cross functional team data, it is difficult to show the value and ROI of DevRel. Establishing a baseline set of metrics if you’re new within an organization, or understanding the baseline metrics that currently exist is critical in ensuring the success of your job in DevRel. Tessa Mero, Head of Developer Relations at Appwrite, has a very specific set of metrics her team focuses on. She shared a few of those metrics: Growth of our GitHub Repo (stars) Growth of our Discord Community Improved engagement in Discord community Growth of our Twitter followers and engagement Growth of our Appwrite Cloud developers Number of views or impressions on any video and written content, whether it's internal or externally created Amount of content created weekly (written or video) Number of projects created with Appwrite for Hackathon sponsorships Number of attendees / questions at a conference talk Number of connections at conferences Number of community support questions answered, improving rate of responses AND rate of how fast we respond, in all public forums Number of support tickets responded to Number of community feedback taken and moved into our DX/Product discussions Number of feedback from UI/UX perspectives and working with design team to follow up with the devs/users with what we did with the feedback Number of engagement/activity from our Appwrite heroes/ambassadors This is just one example of and a subset of metrics a DevRel team should consider tracking, but what you track and how you track it is dependent on your goals and the product. Metrics and what your leadership considers a good ROI can vary greatly from organization to organization. I spoke to another Developer Relations expert in the industry and she shared her experience with the company she just left and the reason she left and it was focused around metrics. She was initially interested in joining the team because of the lack of metrics. However, over time, as she got more experience and as she became more visible, her workload became difficult to prioritize. Since there were no metrics, there were no objectives to measure against to say what was good and what was bad. She felt like she didn’t know what she was doing well or not doing well. Once metrics began to be implemented, the company started pushing her to do more, and she had nothing to push back with because the high level goals were not there. There was no way to prioritize the workload. The company started tracking things like page hits, unique visitors, unique views of videos, number of subscribers, activity on twitter, and other similar numbers, but it was hard to tie any of these back to the ROI for the company. How do you quantify and determine if 100 new subscribers on YouTube is better than 100 new subscribers on twitter? If you can’t quantify it, how do you prioritize it? What Successful DevRel Teams Do Differently With the nature of DevRel and the multitude of levers and factors that determine success and failure, it’s important to allow space for a team or set of individuals to experiment and iterate before making judgment calls. One company that serves millions of developers on its platform is starting up a new meetup program and testing the ROI of sponsoring meetups around the world. Since they are in the testing and experimentation phase, they don’t yet know how to measure success, and that is clear to leadership. 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DevRel