How to Measure DevRel in $$
The Keystone DevRel Metrics framework shows how to measure DevRel in that mystical metric: dollars.
I have a few updates and pieces of content to share, but I figured there’s one big one that deserves to stand alone for this issue of the newsletter:
Measuring Developer Relations has been a topic of discussion, debate, confusion, and uncertainty for the duration of DevRel’s existence as a discipline. How do we measure Developer Relations?
Over the course of my career leading Developer Relations (from manager to multiple executive roles), I have seen dozens of articles and presentations sharing philosophies for measuring DevRel, or suggestions for hundreds of different metrics to track. However, there are very few resources that tell anyone exactly how to measure Developer Relations in a quantifiable, holistic sense.
For the better part of the last half a decade, I have been trying to figure out how to communicate the business value of Developer Relations to stakeholders, boards of directors, and C-suites in the metrics they really want: potential revenue.
While all those dozens and dozens of KPIs might be meaningful to us as DevRel practitioners, when it comes to business value, stakeholders don’t want to see massive dashboards of how many people we reached through public speaking, or how many developers viewed a blog post or watched a video. How does that compute into tangible value for the business itself? They want 💰 metrics. They want revenue potential. Most stakeholders get that DevRel isn’t literal Sales, but there’s a significant gap in understanding of how we get from DevRel activities to active users and closed-won deals.
I’m excited to finally present my Keystone DevRel Metrics framework. This is a framework for translating DevRel KPIs into dollar value — and then demonstrating how to communicate the business value of DevRel with stakeholders and executives.
It’s a lengthy read, but please do read the whole article. Skipping to the end won’t be helpful, because context is very important. I hope that it helps folks in DevRel to wrangle all those numerous KPIs into some straightforward, helpful business value metrics that anyone at your company can understand and get behind.
As I said, there’s lots more to talk about, but this is the Big One for this issue! If you have questions or want to chat about the framework, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Wishing everyone a happy holiday season, and hoping y’all get some well-deserved time off for rest and recuperation!