The foundation of any effective developer relations strategy is a clear understanding of your current position.
In traditional marketing, situational analysis frameworks like the Five Cs (Company, Competitors, Customers, Collaborators, Climate) are commonly used. While these frameworks provide useful insights, developer relations demands a lens that reflects the unique interplay of community, technical engagement, and ecosystem dynamics. That’s where the CORE framework comes in:
- Community: The developers, users, and contributors who interact with your project.
- Organization: Internal alignment, resources, decision-making, and past initiatives.
- Relationships: Strategic and trust-based connections with collaborators, competitors, and dependencies.
- Ecosystem: The broader technical landscape and your project’s place within it.
The CORE framework equips you to evaluate your position and uncover critical insights about your context. Let’s break it down.
Community
The strength of your developer relations strategy rests on the health and dynamics of your community. This includes developers, users, and contributors who engage with your project.
Understanding your community
To assess your community, ask:
- Who are your developers, users, and contributors?
- Where do they engage (e.g., GitHub, Discord, forums, meetups)?
- How engaged are they? What challenges do they face?
Engagement levels, feedback, and participation patterns reveal your community’s vibrancy, strengths, and pain points.
Community life cycle
Communities often progress through distinct stages. Identifying your community’s current stage helps tailor your efforts effectively:
- Starting: No or minimal community activity. Efforts should focus on outreach and onboarding.
- Growing: Early signs of engagement emerge, but patterns remain fluid. Support emerging leaders and encourage participation.
- Established: A mature community with defined workflows and strong engagement. Focus shifts to sustainability and scalability.
Organization
Internal alignment and readiness significantly influence the success of your DevRel strategy. A strong organizational foundation ensures your team can execute effectively.
Assessing your organization
Evaluate your organization across these dimensions:
- Alignment: Are DevRel goals integrated with product, marketing, and engineering objectives?
- Resources: Does your team have the tools, budget, and bandwidth required?
- Leadership buy-in: How committed is leadership to supporting DevRel?
- Decision-making:
- Who are the key influencers in technical decisions?
- How do decisions that impact developers happen?
- Historical context: Review past developer-focused initiatives, identifying lessons from successes and challenges.
A candid analysis of organizational factors reveals strengths to build on and gaps to address.
Relationships
Developer relations thrives on strong, strategic relationships across competitors, collaborators, and dependencies. These relationships can expand opportunities or highlight risks.
Analyzing key relationships
For each entity (e.g., a competitor or partner), consider:
- How is this entity perceived by the developer community?
- What strengths or weaknesses does it bring to the table relative to your project?
- What is their developer relations approach?
- How do their goals and trajectory align or conflict with yours?
Relationship classifications
To prioritize effectively, classify entities using a framework like:
- Market leaders: Established with strong mindshare.
- Challengers: Up-and-coming with growing traction.
- Niche players: Specialized solutions with targeted appeal.
- Shooting stars: High-visibility projects with uncertain longevity.
This analysis highlights collaboration opportunities, competitive threats, and areas to differentiate.
Ecosystem
Your project doesn’t exist in isolation. Understanding its position in the broader technical ecosystem is crucial for shaping strategy.
Mapping your position
Consider these key aspects:
- Perception: How do developers and industry leaders view your project?
- Competitive landscape: What are your main competitors, and how do you compare?
- Unique value: What differentiates your project?
- Segment variation: Perception may differ across segments (e.g., enterprise vs. indie developers).
Assessing your ecosystem
Document the factors that shape your ecosystem. This could include:
- Adoption patterns and trends within your target audience.
- Adjacent technologies or projects that influence or complement your work.
- External perceptions of your maturity, reliability, and growth potential.
By situating your project within the ecosystem, you gain clarity on how to position it for greater impact.
Bringing it all together
The CORE framework offers a structured approach to situational analysis in developer relations. By examining your Community, Organization, Relationships, and Ecosystem, you build a comprehensive understanding of where you stand and what steps are needed to advance.
With this foundation, you can ensure your DevRel strategy is focused, well-informed, and aligned with both your goals and the needs of your developer community.