Product Handbook

Most of the content in the product handbook talks about how we do product at GitLab.

Welcome to the Product Team Handbook

  • The Product Team is led by David DeSanto.
  • The Product Handbook focuses on how we do product at GitLab.
  • Please see Product Direction to learn about what the Product Team plans to build.

Product Team Functions

Product Team Mission

We create products and experiences that customers love and value.

  • Consistency wins as you scale. Our organizational goal is to create a Product Manager (PM) system that maximizes the chances of success across new products, new features, and new team members.
  • We are shipping an experience, and not just a product. Don’t forget about the links between the product and the website, pricing & packaging, documentation, sales, support, etc.
  • It’s about our customers and doing a job for them, not the product itself. Think externally about customer problems, not internally about the technology.
  • It’s about love AND value. Will customers value what we are building? We need to make sure what we build helps build and extract customer value.

Contributing to the Product Handbook

The product handbook is widely referenced by product managers and cross-functional team members. Therefore, we want to follow a consistent change management process so all affected collaborators are aligned and informed when there are changes (specially new requirements, processes, meetings, etc.) that affect their workflow. To help ensure awareness across teams, when suggesting a change to the product handbook, please use the Change-Product-Handbook merge request description template. This ensures your changes are included in Product Operations Releases.

This template will also help you out by automatically adding labels and assigning required reviewers.

You will also be asked to indicate which type of change you are suggesting:

  • Small improvement (typos, clarifications, etc.)
  • Adding a new section
  • Modifying existing section
  • Documenting a new process
  • Adding a new page or directory
  • Other

For a small improvement, please feel free to merge the MR yourself. Otherwise, the template will ping Product Operations for collaboration and review, and the guidance below should be followed for driving awareness:

Informing team members about the changes

It is your responsibility to communicate with relevant team members about your merge request. Here are some best practices to follow:

  • For significant changes affecting the whole Product or Engineering team, consult Product Operations for the best communication strategy.
  • For changes specific to product management, tag @gl-product-pm in the merge request before merging.
  • Indicate in the comment whether you are requesting contributions and feedback or simply providing information.
  • For changes relevant to other teams, tag department leads such as the VP of UX, VP of Development, or the Director of Quality Engineering in the merge request before merging.
  • Share and cross-post the merge request link with a brief description in relevant channels such as Slack #product, #product-leadership, #eng-managers, and #ux-managers.
  • Add the merge request as a read-only or discussion topic in the Weekly Product Management Meeting.
  • For more guidance on communication, refer to the GitLab Communication tips and best practices.

Product Management

  • If you’d like to collaborate with product management see the How to Engage guide.

Product Principles

The Product Principles section is where you can learn about our strategy and philosophy regarding product development here at GitLab.

Product Processes

For a detailed view on how we do Product Development, read up on our established Product Processes.

Product sections, stages, groups, and categories

To learn how the GitLab product and our Teams are organized review our Product Categorization section.

About the GitLab Product

Learn about GitLab as a product, including what does it mean to be a single application, our subscription tiers and pricing model, and the basics of permissions in the platform.

Product Manager Responsibilities

Understand the roles and responsibilities of product managers.

Being a Product Manager at GitLab

Want to know more on what being a Product Manager at GitLab is like? Checkout our Product Manager Role guide for helpful information like our Career Development Framework and learning/development resources.

Product Performance Indicators

Learn how we measure success in Product via our Product KPIs, which are tracked in our Product project. For best practices and guidance on how to add instrumentation for features please review our Analytics Instrumentation workflow.

Product OKRs

Understand the OKR Process for the GitLab Product Team and review current and past OKRs.

Our Product Leadership Team

Learn about our Product Leadership Team and learn about them via their personal README’s.

Communicating with the Product Division

Below are team emails and handles that can be used for different departments and sub-departments in the Product Division. These groups are used for internal communication and the @mention can only be used by project members. Please remember that tagging @mention on issues will generate in-product to-do items and email notifications to all team members in that project, so use it only when you need to communicate with the entire team. For communication specifically for product managers, please leverage How to Engage.

  • @gl-product-leadership tags all group managers, directors and VPs in the Product Division
  • @gl-product-plt tags all direct reports to the VP Product in the Product Division
  • @gl-product-pm tags to all members of Product Management, Product Monetization and Product Operations in the Product Division
  • @gl-product tags to all members in the Product Division: Product Management, Product Monetization, Product Operations, Product Design, User Research, and Technical Writing
  • product@gitlab.com emails all members of Product Management, Product Monetization and Product Operations in the Product Division
  • ux-department@gitlab.com emails all members of UX (UX Research, Technical Writing and Product Design) in the Product Division
  • @gitlab-com/gitlab-ux tags all members of UX (UX Research, Technical Writing and Product Design) in the Product Division
  • @gitlab-com/gitlab-ux/managers tags all people managers within UX (UX Research, Technical Writing, and Product Design)
  • @gitlab-com/gitlab-ux/designers tags all Product Designers and Design Managers in UX
  • @gl-docsteam for all Technical Writers in UX

When you are tagging @mention:

  • Clearly state why you are tagging the entire product team and what action you need product team members to take.
  • Write a short summary in the same comment so team members can quickly understand the necessary context.
  • Review the issue title and description to ensure it has relevant details other product team members need BEFORE submitting the comment. The issue title will be the subject of email notifications and in-product to-do items.
  • If asking team members to review a change, please directly link to the specific page on the review app and any relevant issues or MRs.

Advantages of a single application
Single application GitLab is a complete DevOps platform, delivered as a single application that does everything from project planning and source code management to CI/CD, monitoring, and security. The advantages of a single application are listed in the following paragraphs. By delivering a single application we shorten cycle times, increase productivity, and thus create value for our customers. Other vendors offer a kit plane you have to assemble yourself, GitLab is a type certified aircraft.
AI-assisted features
This page contains information about AI at GitLab.
Analytics Instrumentation Guide
Disclaimer: This guide is mostly out of date. We are in the process of updating and migrating the content. {: .alert .alert-info} Analytics Instrumentation Overview At GitLab, we collect product usage data for the purpose of helping us build a better product. Data helps GitLab understand which parts of the product need improvement and which features we should build next. Product usage data also helps our team better understand the reasons why people use GitLab.
Collaboration on shared feature and experience areas
Collaboration process and documentation of shared feature areas for product groups
Cross Functional Prioritization
Cross-Functional Prioritization Purpose Achieve and maintain an optimal balance of new features, security fixes, availability work, performance improvements, bug fixes, etc. via a framework that helps drive conversations and alignment. Balance across these categories will allow GitLab to operate in a way that will allow us to meet revenue goals and maintain the stability of our platform. Give voice to everyone in the quad (PM, Development, Quality, and UX) Provide transparency into prioritization and work status to internal and external stakeholders so they can advocate for their work items Implementation Philosophy The quad members (UX/Design, Quality, Product Management, Development) utilizing this process should focus on:
Fulfillment Guide
The Fulfillment Sub-department is responsible for the infrastructure between the systems which affect the user purchasing process.
GitLab the Product
Principles - Processes - Categorization - GitLab the Product - PM Responsibilities - Being a PM - Performance Indicators - Leadership GitLab the Product Single application We believe that a single application for the DevOps lifecycle based on convention over configuration offers a superior user experience. The advantage can be quoted from the Wikipedia page for convention over configuration: “decrease the number of decisions that developers need to make, gaining simplicity, and not necessarily losing flexibility”.
Groups
How the growth section works
Overview The Growth stage is responsible for scaling GitLab’s business value. To accomplish this, Growth analyzes the entire customer journey from acquisition of a customer to the flow across multiple GitLab features - and even reactivation of lost users. Several groups help with this mission: Activation, Conversion, Expansion, and Adoption connect users to the existing value that GitLab already delivers by rapid experimentation. Analytics Instrumentation builds the backbone of data that other groups need to be successful, enabling a data-informed product culture at GitLab.
How to Engage with Product Management
This document describes how to engage with the product management team. Where to reach Product Managers Public Issue Tracker (for Product); please use confidential issues for topics that should only be visible to team members at GitLab. Chat channel; please use the #product chat channel for questions that don’t seem appropriate for the issue tracker. Which Product Manager should I contact? Please see the Product Categories to know which product manager handles which category.
Making Gifs
Animated gifs are an awesome way of showing of features that need a little more than just an image, either for marketing purposes or explaining a feature in more detail. This page holds all information on the entire process of creating a gif. General The GIF format is popular because it works everywhere and has a no-fuss UI. – Kornel Gifs are used everywhere for a reason, but as you can read in the referenced article above, they are also expensive.
Personas
Roles vs personas Personas describe the ideal target for GitLab. They help us define our messaging and marketing delivery. They are theoretical people to target. By defining their concerns and where they go for information, we can best spend our marketing dollars and sales efforts by focusing on this ideal target. Roles are distinct job titles. These are the real people you will encounter while selling. You will find a contact at an account with a specific role.
Pricing and Packaging
Product - Interpreting Release Dates
One of GitLab's core values is Transparency. We do this to make collaboration easier and do this by default.
Product Data Insights
Product Data Insights Handbook The Product Data Insights (formerly known as “Product Analysis”) group consists of a team of product analysts. This group reports to the Senior Director, Product Monetization and serves as a functional analytics team to support the GitLab Product division and product data-related analysis across GitLab. In addition to supporting the Product division, the Product Data Insights team is an active contributor to the GitLab Data Program. As part of the Research & Development (R&D) Data Fusion Team, the product analysts also work closely with members from the Enterprise Data team.
Product Division OKRs
Principles - Processes - Categorization - GitLab the Product - PM Responsibilities - Being a PM - Performance Indicators - Leadership Product Division OKR Overview For an overview of our overall approach to OKRs, as well as any company-wide OKR due dates, see Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). General timeline and process Guidance on timeline and process This page provides an overview of the Product Division OKR workflow. All departments (product management, UX, etc.
Product Division Performance Indicators
Principles - Processes - Categorization - GitLab the Product - PM Responsibilities - Being a PM - Performance Indicators - Leadership Product Performance Indicators have permanently moved to our internal handbook. GitLab team members can access and update all performance indicators within the internal handbook.
Product Internship - Best Practices
This document describes best practices for internship for learning with Product. Interning for Learning - Product Best Practices Internships are a great way for a GitLab team member to learn about being a Product Manager at GitLab. Use this guide for planning and executing an internship under an IC PM who acts as the ‘Intern Mentor’. How to find a mentor in the Product Management team The first step you will need to take in order to start an internship in Product Management is to find a mentor from the Product Management team.
Product Leadership
Principles - Processes - Categorization - GitLab the Product - PM Responsibilities - Being a PM - Performance Indicators - Leadership General Product Organizational Structure The GitLab Product team includes team members at various levels of Product Management job titles across our organizational levels with scope at various points in our product hierarchy. As a result there can be instances where peers across layers don’t have the same title. We will always abide by GitLab’s layer structure.
Product Management
Product Manager SAFE Guidance
Overview This guide for GitLab Product Managers clarifies and expands on the Regulation FD Training. Making changes to this page To make any edits to this page, please create a merge request and add a description of what you want to change and why. Add labels product operations prodops:release and product handbook. Add Product Operations DRI/Maintainer @fseifoddini as Reviewer for collaboration and approval. If Product Operations is unavailable and the topic is time-sensitive, please add Maintainer @gweaver for collaboration and approval.
Product Milestones
When planning, Product Managers plan to GitLab milestones. Here is the process for creating and maintaining them. Product Milestone Creation One quarter ahead, the Engineering team, in partnership with the Product team, will create all of the necessary milestones for the next quarter. Our standard practice is to have the Major release every May, resulting in: XX.0 - May XX.1 - June XX.2 - July XX.3 - August XX.4 - September XX.
Product Operations
For an overview and focus areas of product operations at GitLab, check out product operations direction. Product operations team Justin Farris Product operations direction You can learn about what Product Operations is at GitLab, how it works and the areas of focus here. Product operations board You can collaborate or contribute to any work in progress with the Product Operations team by following the product operations issue board or epic board.
Product Principles
These are core principles we believe world class product organizations exhibit. The goal is to build a PM system that fosters and honors these principles, in a way that works for GitLab.
Product Processes
As a Product Organization, we work to create a flexible yet concise product development framework for developing products that customers love and value.
Product sections, stages, groups, and categories
Principles - Processes - Categorization - GitLab the Product - PM Responsibilities - Being a PM - Performance Indicators - Leadership Interfaces We want intuitive interfaces both within the company and with the wider community. This makes it more efficient for everyone to contribute or to get a question answered. Therefore, the following interfaces are based on the product categories defined on this page: Home page Product page Product Features Pricing page DevOps Lifecycle DevOps Tools Product Direction Stage visions Documentation Engineering Engineering Manager/Developer/Designer titles, their expertise, and department, and team names.
Secure and Govern Internship Program
Overview The best way to learn about something is by doing it. The best feedback comes directly from working with end-users and the product directly. At GitLab, we have the opportunity to get more direct product feedback and help folks learn more about security at the same time. For folks interested in learning more about security and/or Product Management, we are offering the opportunity to an internship with the Secure and Govern Product Management team.
The Product Manager Role at GitLab
On this page, you'll find an overview as well as links to helpful resources for working as a product manager at GitLab.
Tiering Strategy & Guidance for Product Managers
On this page Tiering strategy Free is targeted at individual contributor developers. It is a complete DevOps solution and contains capabilities from all ten GitLab stages. Premium is targeted at Director level buyers and is for teams. The pricing themes for Premium are Faster code reviews, Advanced CI/CD, Enterprise agile planning, Release controls and Self managed reliability. Premium helps teams iterate faster and innovate together. Ultimate is targeted at Executive level buyers and is for organizations.
Use Cases
Use Cases have been moved and renamed to Application Types.
UX Department
The GitLab UX department comprises four areas to support designing the GitLab product: UX Research, Product Design, Technical Writing, and Foundations