Help customers successfully grow and evolve in their journey with GitLab to achieve positive business outcomes with effective enablement solutions aligned to Gitlab’s values.
Handbook-First Approach to GitLab Learning and Development Materials
Chat between David Somers (Director, Field Enablement) and Sid Sijbrandij (CEO)
Key Discussion Points
Our Mission is that Everyone Can Contribute, and our most important value is Results. Like we've extended that to the Handbook, we want to extend it to our Learning Materials.
We want to leverage the best of an e-learning platform, with the benefits of reminders, interactivity, and more but make sure the materials we produce are also available to those who aren't using an e-learning platform, while fulfilling our mission.
There are benefits to keeping our e-learning material handbook-first:
Folks who have already completed a formal training through an e-learning platform may want to return to the materials
Those who never go through the formal platform may also benefit from the materials
The handbook continues to be the SSOT, with the e-learning platform leveraging handbook materials through screenshots, embeds, and more
Six Critical Questions
inspired by The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
Why does the GitLab Field Enablement team exist?
See our Mission
How do we behave?
On our best day, we show up with a positive attitude while demonstrating GitLab’s values along with the following behaviors to overcome the Five Dysfunctions:
Trust: Extend trust, actively listen, and assume noble intent; give and receive feedback with respect and solicit feedback often
Embrace Healthy Conflict: Engage in constructive conflict for the purpose of achieving shared goals & objectives; resolve personal issues, quickly and directly
Commitment: Support decisions once decisions are made with a GitLab team-first approach
Accountability: Hold ourselves and each other accountable while encouraging each other & celebrating successes
Results: Strong drive for results and a focus on the customer; demonstrate passion for continuous learning & improvement
What does the Field Enablement team do?
Define, coordinate, and/or lead the development and delivery of effective enablement solutions (training, technology, knowledge, content, process, and tools) for GitLab sales reps, Customer Success professionals, and partners
Lead facilitation of prioritized behavior change in the GitLab field organization
Serve as a champion for the field – ensure they are regularly informed about relevant business and organizational updates and have access to enablement materials necessary for day-to-day work
Collaborate cross-functionally with key stakeholders including Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, Sales Ops, Product, and PeopleOps
What does success look like?
The below is a work in progress as we define success measures across each stage of the customer journey:
Engage & Educate the Customer
Increase # of rep-sourced opps
Accelerate sales cycle time and improve conversion of MQLs to SAOs
Accelerate and improve predictability of new rep ramp time
Progress the Opportunity & Close the Deal -
Increase # of closed deals per rep
Accelerate sales cycle time and improve conversion of SAOs to Closed/Won deals
Increase average sale price (inclusive of improved product mix to sell more Premium/Silver and Ultimate/Gold)
Accelerate and improve predictability of new rep ramp time
Improve forecasting accuracy
Improve win rates
Retain & Expand
Improve renewal rates (inclusive of up-sell and cross-sell)
Accelerate customer time to value
Increase breadth of stage adoption
What is most important right now (2HFY20)?
Field certification program (Sales, CS & Partner audiences)
Sales methodology & process
Command of the Message & MEDDPICC operationalization
Functional onboarding training for Sales & Customer Success roles
Continued execution & ongoing iteration to accelerate time to productivity for new field team members
Support launch & expansion of new GitLab channel partner program
Embrace partner enablement as an extension of GitLab Sales and Customer Success enablement
Standard operating procedures for Sales & Customer Success
Sales process documentation
Sales enablement to reduce the dependence of SALs & AEs on SAs
Improve learning experience via enhanced L&D tooling
LMS/LXP selection & implementation
Launch sales/field communications strategy
Continuous learning
CS Skills Exchange, Sales Enablement Level Up Webcast series
Improve sales asset management (in collaboration with Marketing)
Create a clear vision for the future that connects the Field Enablement vision & mission to the GitLab and GitLab Sales strategy
Oversee direction of current & future portfolio of Field Enablement programs
Help the team prioritize, where appropriate
Empower, trust, and support team members to develop strategies & tactics to achieve the vision
Remove obstacles to achieving that vision
Motivate and inspire team members and set the tone for team norms
Build & maintain meaningful influence across GitLab
Lead global Sales Kick Off (SKO) strategy planning and execution efforts with cross-functional team (including Sales, Corporate Marketing, Product Marketing, and more)
Expand professional knowledge and subject matter expertise by attending workshops/training, networking, and reading relevant publications, blogs, books, etc.
Use the GitLab.com group for epics that may include issues within and outside the Sales Team group
Use the GitLab Sales Team group for epics that may include issues within and outside the Field Operations group
Projects
Create issues under the “Enablement” project
Labels
Team labels
field enablement - issue initially created, used in templates, the starting point for any label that involved Field Enablement
FieldOps - label for issues that we want to expose to the VP of Field Operations; these will often mirror issues with the SCE: priority 1 tag, particularly those relating to OKRs and other prioritized projects by Field Ops leadership
Stakeholder/Customer labels
FE:CS enablement - label for Field Enablement issues related to enabling Customer Success (CS) roles
FE:sales enablement - label for Field Enablement issues related to enabling Sales roles
FE:partner enablement - label for Field Enablement issues related to enabling Partners
Initiative labels
continuing education - label for issues related to continuing education
career dev - label for issues related to career development
FE:new request - label for new requests originating outside of the Field Enablement team
field certification - label for issues related to https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/sales/training/field-certification/
field communications - label for items that include work by/with the Field Communications team within Field Enablement
force management - label for issues related to Force Management engagement
vff - label for Value Framework Feedback
vff::new - starting point for Value Framework feedback
vff::accepted = Value Framework feedback that will be actioned on
vff::deferred = Value Framework feedback that will be deferred until more information is gathered
vff::declined = Value Framework feedback that is declined (no action will be taken)
onboarding - label for issues related to onboarding
sales enablement sessions - label for weekly virtual sales enablement series
sko - label for issues related to Sales Kick Off
status:plan - used in conjunction with sales enablement sessions to indicate when a session topic has been prioritized but not yet scheduled
status:scheduled - used in conjunction with sales enablement sessions to indicate when a session topic has been prioritized and scheduled
Priority labels
FE priority::1 - Home runs (high value to GitLab and high likelihood of success that align to S&CE OKRs) and committed to completion within 90 days. This category will be limited because not everything can be a priority.
FE priority::2 - Big Bets (high value to GitLab, lower likelihood of success) within 90 days
FE priority::3 - Small wins (lower value to GitLab, high likelihood of success) within 90 days
FE priority::Backlog - Things in the queue not currently being worked
