Accreditation Strategy Meeting Notes

Meetings

Kristen 1:1 (2/3/26)

Attendees: Michelle Horn, [Participant 2]

Goal: Align on the audit and organization of partner enablement assets, clarify roles for CSMs in the partner model, and establish next steps for identifying missing, supporting, and key assets for partner delivery and onboarding.

Key Topics Discussed

Role of CSMs and Partners

Discussed uncertainty around the Customer Success Manager (CSM) role in partner-led engagements.

Tentative conclusion: the partner will act as both consultant and CSM from the customer's perspective during onboarding and activation.

Compared current expectations to how team members (TMs) deliver professional services within "coda world" today.

Enablement Asset Audit Process

Ongoing deep audit of enablement assets—Michelle is conducting a detailed review, referencing a prior intern-led audit.

Intern audit (from the summer) compared the portal, Highspot, and available partner assets; considered largely accurate per Dakota.

Agreed that new audit should focus on aligning available assets and identifying what is missing for partner enablement.

Existing audits validate parity between Highspot and partner portals but don’t account for what's missing; new audit will fill this gap.

Plan to overlay current resources with additional finds, then generate and prioritize a missing asset list to address with stakeholders (Matt, Liano, etc.).

Asset Categorization & Gaps

Confusion exists over the distinctions between supporting, missing, and key partner assets.

Noted that delivery enablement assets are especially lacking.

Discussed adding known gaps to the working doc and acknowledged that the categorization (key, supporting, missing) needs clearer definitions—referenced Lauren and Alex for more clarity.

All missing assets are essentially required enablement assets.

Identified region-specific messaging as an overlooked asset requirement.

Structuring Enablement Content

Proposed format for tracking enablement assets: for each product, list related courses/content in a table, note where assets exist, and flag missing ones.

Recognized additional complexity due to gaps, multiple repositories, and strategy alignment.

Michelle is coordinating with Lauren, Alex, and plans to consult Joel on the emerging structure and strategy for partner enablement.

Next Steps and Immediate Deliverables

Team feels first pass at asset inventory is good enough for current needs, with additional refinement coming.

Michelle will finish reviewing/tidying up all remaining courses and will tag [Participant 2] in relevant docs/courses by end of day.

Tomorrow's sync is cancelled; Michelle to continue developing the broader strategy and share progress for review.

Action Items

Michelle to complete review of the last 10 courses in sauna and tag [Participant 2] in all docs/courses—by end of day today.

Michelle to integrate prior audit data, identify missing assets, and build prioritized list for creation.

Michelle to consult Lauren, Alex, and Joel to refine asset categorization strategy and overall structure.

[Participant 2] to review updated asset inventory/documents once tagged and provide feedback.

Lauren 1:1 (2/3/26)

Meeting Title: Partner Accreditation Structure Discussion

Attendees: Lauren & Michelle

Objective Discussed and refined the structure and requirements for partner product accreditation; focused on creating an accreditation system that includes a core product credential and specific persona-based micro-credentials to ensure depth and business relevance for partners.

Next Steps

[Lead DRI/Team] to draft and socialize the updated accreditation framework, including core and persona-specific tracks.

[Product/Enablement Team] to identify and document critical business use cases by persona.

[DRI/Key Stakeholders] to review with Rob, Alex, and others for initial feedback and iterate as needed.

[DRI/Enablement] to prioritize building assets for core product and marketing persona for Q1 rollout, followed by additional personas.

Team to segment current partners and determine readiness by product and persona for focused enablement and rollout.

Summary of Discussed Topics

1. Accreditation Structure (Core + Personas)

Proposed that partner accreditation requires completion of core product certification plus one specialized persona (sales, marketing, product, or education).

Each persona will focus on specific business use cases, making enablement and partner value more tangible. → Decision: Alignment on moving forward with this two-level (core + persona) accreditation scheme.

2. Micro-Credentials and Depth

Micro-credentials discussed as necessary for partners to demonstrate specialty in specific functions within each persona.

Recognized the need to have partners go deep in one vertical to facilitate sales and customer engagement. → Decision: Persona-based micro-credentials are required for full accreditation, not just optional.

3. Prioritizing Personas and Use Cases

Marketing persona considered the most universally applicable fallback if a partner does not fit neatly into other categories.

Emphasized that broad, general training has resulted in poor adoption—specificity and depth are needed.

Recognized the need to eventually cover all main personas but prioritize based on product and partner readiness.

4. Asset Development and Partner Enablement

Asset creation (e.g., use case deep dives, sales starter kits) should be separated by product and persona to drive focus and impact. → Decision: Start with core product and marketing persona for Q1, expand to others as capacity allows.

5. Feedback and Buy-In Process

Importance of getting feedback from Rob and Alex, iterating with their input before pitching senior execs (Co, Coa).

Plan to package proposal as a phased approach to avoid overwhelming stakeholders and ensure quality over quantity. → Action: Sanity checks and feedback loops defined as next immediate steps.

6. Intentional Build and Prioritization

Stress on the need for intentional framework to guide the quarter and organization’s focus, avoiding ad hoc approaches.

Acknowledge not all resources and assets are ready—must prioritize based on partner segmentation and strongest verticals.

Recognized this is a significant effort but necessary for meaningful partner activation and measurable business value.

Michelle & Alex 1:1 (2/3/26)

Attendees: Michelle Horn, Alex

Goal: Sanity check and develop a new approach to partner sales accreditations, ensuring the program emphasizes both product knowledge and persona-specific expertise. Aim to create a scalable path for onboarding, certifying, and activating partners with the right competencies to address customer needs.

Key Topics Discussed

Structuring Sales Accreditations

Michelle outlined struggles with current product-based accreditation (Grammarly, Coda, Mail), noting that each product has multiple relevant personas (sales, marketing, etc.) with distinct challenges.

Proposal to require partners to certify on a core product module, then select and accredit for at least one key persona (e.g., sales, marketing, EPD) to better reflect real-world selling and solutions delivery.

Concern about whether this dual requirement (core + persona) might be difficult for some and how best to communicate it internally.

Mutual agreement: solution partners usually self-select their persona focus; program design should embrace this and ensure fit for most delivered work.

Implementation vs. Sales Readiness

Discussion about partners’ readiness to sell versus implement (with IG cited as not yet confident selling even the simplest products).

Prioritize enabling partners to first get hands-on with implementations, helping them understand business value (50–150 hour engagements), to build confidence and momentum before shifting responsibility for selling.

Identified gap: many partners are ‘one foot in, one foot out’ of the partnership due to lack of initial tangible value.

Use Case-Driven Enablement

Both agree on the need for targeted, “wowing” use cases (3–5 per ecosystem or persona) to clearly demonstrate value, particularly for Coda/Jira in the Atlassian world.

Making sales and implementation easier by focusing accreditation on these actionable, persona-specific use cases will help partners develop expertise and drive adoption.

Value in simplifying the ‘crawl, walk, run’ pathway: Crawl = 1 product, 1 persona, 1 use case; Walk = 2–3 use cases; Run = five+ use cases or complex solutions.

Recognized that generic introductions (“how Grammarly works”) are not effective; specificity for each persona/use case is essential.

Experimentation and Next Steps

Discussion about launching a targeted experiment to prove out the model—debate between focusing on Atlassian+Coda (for Jira use cases) or on HubSpot/Salesforce+Coda or Grammarly (to avoid overlap with existing perceptions).

Noted need for an ‘asset audit’ to identify what content/certification components are missing per product/persona combination before next steps.

Michelle plans to organize further sessions with Alex and Lauren to refine the proposal before presenting to broader stakeholders (Cohen, Coa).

Action Items

Michelle to conduct an asset audit to determine missing content for product-persona combinations.

Michelle to gather additional input from Eric on expectations for partner onboarding and implementation benchmarks (e.g., 30/60/90 day goals).

Michelle, Alex, Lauren to meet again (target: next week) to finalize program structure and prepare for stakeholder presentation.

Michelle to identify and propose a small-scale experiment (likely Atlassian+Coda or similar) to validate the new accreditation approach.

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