Ecosystem SA Operating Rhythm
Principles for How You Use This Document
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Alignment first, not rigidity. Use this to check that your weekly activities clearly support our three FY27 ESA Strategy pillars:
- Build a scalable ecosystem activation engine (“force multiplier”).
- Operationalize partner revenue growth strategies.
- Make partners the default extension of GitLab delivery and success.
These are how we will move the Ecosystem “big rocks”: AI / DAP (Duo/DAP), MSPs, end‑to‑end enablement, and services‑led adoption.
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Regional and partner flexibility. AMER MSP‑heavy work will look different from an emerging‑markets resale motion in APJ. You are not expected to do every example every week.
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Choose a healthy mix. Over a typical week, your time should naturally include:
- Working with ESMs and partners to create/sustain pipeline and especially Partner Sourced revenue. Co-sell is important too. NetARR (growth revenue) is the primary metric.
- Shaping partner services and SCOPE catalog entries that support adoption and renewals.
- Connecting through Champions to activate new skills in your region
- Investing in skills, Duo/DAP patterns, and reusable content that make future weeks easier.
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Qualitative guidance. Measurable value for GitLab. We care most that your week tells a clear and measurable story about the value our Partner Ecosystem is generating for GitLab:
- How you helped partners create or progress opportunities.
- How you improved partner capability (presales, services, Duo/DAP).
- How you contributed to SCOPE, the services solution catalog, and the SA operating model.
Example Focus Areas for a Strong Week
These are examples, not a checklist. Each ESA and region should choose the combination that best supports their partners, regional plan, and current quarter priorities.
1. Partner Revenue & Opportunity Creation
You might choose to spend time on:
- ESM - ESA working sessions and PAP updates.
- Reviewing Partner Activation Plans (PAPs) with your ESMs.
- Create a Regional PAP for the ESMs you support. Probably it’s best to have one PAP for each ESM, though you maintaining a single PAP for all of your partners is ok too.
- Identifying which partners you will activate or progress this week for new opportunities or First Orders.
- Customer‑facing work with partners.
- Joining customer calls or demos where a partner is present.
- Ensuring the partner is clearly positioned as a co‑seller or delivery owner, not just an observer.
- Qualitative pipeline hygiene.
- Making sure partner‑involved opportunities are easy to understand:
- Who is the partner?
- Are they sourcing, influencing, or delivering services?
- Where are you helping shape scope, feasibility, or DAP usage?
- Making sure partner‑involved opportunities are easy to understand:
Focus on creating and improving opportunities, not just counting meetings.
2. Partner Presales Activation & Duo/DAP Readiness
You might choose to focus on:
- Partner discovery and demo coaching.
- Running or supporting sessions that move specific partner SAs from “curious” to “Value Ready” on GitLab and Duo/DAP.
- Reviewing partner demos or PoV plans and giving concrete, practical feedback.
- DAP evaluation patterns.
- Helping partners understand how to position Duo/DAP and how to run a clean evaluation alongside us.
- Sharing what you learn from these evaluations back into Jonathan’s DAP engagement and SA operating model work.
- Preparing partners to lead.
- Shifting from “ESA leads the demo” to “partner leads, ESA observes and tunes,” especially as partners grow in maturity.
The signal of a strong week here: partners are more independent and more confident than they were seven days ago.
3. Partner Services, Adoption, and the SCOPE Catalog
Working through Champions to build the SCOPE services solution catalog is a major focus this year.
You might choose to:
- Shape concrete service offers with Champions.
- Spend time with a Champion or key partner to describe one very specific service:
- What problem does it solve?
- For which customer segment / tier / region?
- What does “good” look like at the end of the engagement?
- Turn that into a draft catalog entry that will live in SCOPE.
- Spend time with a Champion or key partner to describe one very specific service:
- Map catalog offers to real customers.
- Schedule time to work with field SA’s, Staff SAs, or your regional Field SA Manager to review active opportunities or renewals, identify which catalogued services (or in‑progress SCOPE entries) would help:
- Onboarding and early adoption.
- Migration and upgrades.
- Ongoing optimization / managed service.
- Schedule time to work with field SA’s, Staff SAs, or your regional Field SA Manager to review active opportunities or renewals, identify which catalogued services (or in‑progress SCOPE entries) would help:
- Collaborate with your ESM with your regional Engagement Manager on ROE‑aligned delivery.
- Join CS or PS discussions where a partner should reasonably own delivery and adoption.
- Use SCOPE entries (even early drafts) to recommend specific partners and offers, not just “we should use a partner.”
Over time, these weekly actions should make SCOPE feel like a shared system of record for GitLab and partners, not an ESA‑only artifact.
4. Contribution to the SA Operating Model
To stay fully inside Jonathan’s operating model, you might:
- Work in the same ROE and language as geo SAs.
- Engage primarily around Stage 2 scoping and structured evaluations.
- Use CSPs, PS data, and tech‑win definitions the same way the rest of the SA org does.
- Improve patterns, not just help individual deals.
- When you support an opportunity, ask: “Is there a reusable pattern or catalog entry hiding inside this that would help other SAs and partners?”
- Capture that pattern in meeting notes and share it with the team in Slack, our Weekly Team Notes doc, etc. to improve our team practices.
- Make partner work visible in SA calls.
- Ensure partner‑influenced wins show up not just in ecosystem stories, but in field SA team calls. With permission, invite Champions to participate on internal enablement, regional SA team calls etc..
Here, a strong week means your work would make sense to another SA leader looking only at SA metrics and epics.
5. Learning, Content, and Long‑Term Leverage
Finally, a healthy ESA week includes space to get better and make work reusable:
You might choose to:
- Invest in product, cloud, and Duo/DAP skills.
- Take time for structured enablement on new GitLab releases, DAP features, or AWS/GCP integrations that matter for your partners.
- Build or refine one reusable asset.
- A demo, reference architecture, discovery guide, or short “how we use this partner service in deals” note.
- Something that helps other ESAs, SAs, ESMs, or partners move faster next time without needing you present.
The weekly bar here is simple: you should be able to point to at least one small thing to improve scalability that will make a future week easier for someone else.
How Managers and ESAs Should Use This
- For ESAs:
- At the start of the week, choose a small set of focus areas from this page based on:
- Your top partners and PAPs.
- Your region’s maturity and current quarter priorities.
- At the end of the week, be able to tell a short story:
- “Here is how I helped partners create or mature opportunities.”
- “Here is how I advanced services and SCOPE.”
- “Here is how I stayed inside the SA operating model and improved patterns.”
- At the start of the week, choose a small set of focus areas from this page based on:
- For managers:
- Use this as a qualitative lens, not a scorecard.
- In 1:1s, ask:
- Which parts of this week looked strongest for this ESA?
- Where did they flex for their region in a way that still ladders to Alex and Jonathan?
- What should we dial up or down next quarter?
The goal is not identical calendars. The goal is that, across very different markets and partners, the shape of our ESA weeks clearly supports FY27 Ecosystem, SA, and your Geo sales leader strategies
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