IMPROVING DEVELOPER COMPLIANCE - a playbook
Compliance:
Too Important to Get Wrong
Introduction
If you produce, gather, process, sell, or share user data of any kind, you are legally responsible for the data collected and shared by your developers and partners. Between Europe's Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), nearly two dozen laws in the United States, and a dozen more global regulations, your legal obligations are numerous. No matter your size or location, it is necessary (and a business best practice) to maintain full compliance within your company and developer network.
Check-in
Answer the check-in questions throughout the playbook to find out how your onboarding program ranks, and how you could improve.
While compliance requirements can feel daunting, they cannot be ignored. To help you manage your external developers, we break developer compliance down into three core tenets:
- Inform: Use video to show your developers what you need from them, why you need it, and where to find it.
- Support: Give your developers the tools and resources they need to comply with leading data regulations.
- Manage: Measure engagement, and improve your processes along the way.
The world's largest companies, with the most rigorous data integrity and privacy programs, use Data Protocol to inform, support, and manage their developers at scale. When you need to know that your developers are complying with regulations and protecting your shared users, you need to empower them with the tools to do so.
Data Protocol understands that developers don't want to break anything. They don't want to violate data regulations, and they don't want to make mistakes. When you give them what they need, everyone benefits. This is our playbook.
did you know that If you collect, handle, share, or sell consumer data, you and your developers need to:
Maintain a privacy policy
Regularly assess data standards and practices
Set a standard data use and privacy notification process
Be able to delete user data upon request (the right to be forgotten)
Have a data breach notification process and response policy
Step 01: Inform
Set expectations for your developers early. During onboarding and throughout the development lifecycle, remind them of upcoming milestones and requirements. Always lead with your commitment to supporting them through that process - then do it.
Check-in
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Ask yourself:
Do you know what laws apply to your business?
Do you include regulatory requirements and compliance training during onboarding?
Do your developers clearly understand your data use and privacy standards?
Make training a part of your compliance communications from the beginning, and give developers all the videos, resources, and documentation they'll need to succeed. For most companies, this may be as simple as an interactive Terms of Service that improves awareness to align accountability and responsibility. For others, it may be a more comprehensive training related to data transfers or a regulated industry like financial services or healthcare. In any case, more is better, but dynamic and efficient is best. Start at the beginning, and:
- Include links to training content in your onboarding emails and updates
- Set expectations with clearly-defined steps and deadlines
- Feature resources in your documentation and developer site
Step 02: Support
Prioritize compliance with the same level of investment you would for product support. You wouldn't ask a developer to implement a new feature without documenting how, explaining why, and considering what would happen if they were unsuccessful. A standard privacy policy and generic terms of service are not commensurate with the importance of this obligation.
Use interactive courses to guide developers with expertly designed content customized for their goals. The promise of a better, faster, and more efficient way of receiving support should be clear to developers from the beginning. Requiring a fundamental understanding that there are laws and why it is important to meet these standards will dramatically reduce risk for everyone involved. This training can:
- Feature new and existing developer documentation and guides
- Send milestone-specific communications
- Keep your audience up-to-date with your latest content
Check-in
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Do you provide developers with interactive courses to guide them through compliance training?
Step 03: Manage
Compliance training is not optional, and too important to get wrong. The previous two steps will help you be proactive. Inform your developers early and often, and support them through milestones with resources and information. The last component is management. You need to know that they understand what is required of them, that they have what they need, and that they are meeting that standard. You need attributable confirmation.
Ideally you need a process, or at least a checkpoint, through which you are able to validate that your developers are committed to meeting their responsibility. This can be easier said than done as your company and its network of developers grows. You should plan for scale and use metrics whenever possible to inform the process. Your developers will tell you when a requirement is too onerous or something can be streamlined.
Check-in
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Do you have a way to validate that developers can meet their responsibilities?
If you answered 'Yes' - how do you know?
Don't let frustration or friction lead to costly mistakes. Your management process should enable you to:
- Gather individual and aggregate metrics to validate proficiency and track value.
- Recognize and reward developers as they complete training and meet milestones.
- Automate and scale notifications and communication with your developers to reduce the administrative burden on everyone.
The Data Protocol Approach
Data Protocol is a developer engagement and support platform. On behalf of our partners, we produce and host dynamic content and interactive resources for their developers. When integrated into the onboarding process of any developer-first company, Data Protocol deepens engagement, improves conversion, and gathers valuable, attributable metrics.
Your Results:
Answer the check-in questions throughout the playbook to see how your onboarding program is performing, and how you can improve.
Here's how we help you:
Your developer's want to build great products. They want to meet your standards. They certainly want to be in compliance with the law. Violations and mistakes are almost always the result of not understanding what is required or not having what they need to meet that requirement. This is too important not to get right. Data Protocol can help.
Let's Talk