// Research

There's a pattern I've seen play out across dozens of DevRel conversations, confirmed in my MBA dissertation research: teams without a clear golden thread from company strategy to daily activity get 'randomised' by whoever asks most urgently. Here's what the research says about why it happens and how to build your way out of it.

Of the 13 DevRel leaders I interviewed for my MBA dissertation, only two could clearly demonstrate a coherent link between tactical activity and organisational strategy. In this post, I talk through how focusing on the developer journey can help bridge that gap.

Academic research on brand communities can help DevRel, but only up to a point. The bigger lesson is where the model breaks: developer communities run on trust in the technology, not loyalty to the brand.

Education. Success. Marketing. Programs. These four pillars describe what Developer Relations teams do. But the more important question is what makes that work credible, useful, and trusted by developers.

The question of how Developer Relations (DevRel) teams create value has been answered plenty of times (though rarely through systematic research). In 2024 I looked into it properly through 13 interviews with DevRel leaders, culminating in an MBA dissertation at Warwick Business School, unearthing a couple of surprises along the way. This series works through what I found.