“This is the city.”

That’s how every episode of Dragnet started.

The show was admittedly before my time, but I’ve seen enough to know there’s a pattern, as there is for any police procedural. The serious, straight-talking cop, Joe Friday, drags his hapless partner through the city to investigate a crime.

Joe breaks out his other catchphrase during interviews with witnesses, who often go on and on with details that may not matter.

With misogyny that would not fly today, Joe interrupts them and says, “just the facts, ma’am.”

It’s a natural reaction, when faced with irrelevant information to pull your own Joe Friday.

If you ask developers, they may say it themselves: “just give me the docs and I’ll figure it out.”

Unfortunately… that’s rarely the best move.

What they mean is they don’t want to hear meaningless benefits. They’d rather figure out the “real story” themselves.

I’ve learned that you can do some of that work for them.

If you can tell some of the developer stories, you’ll get more engagement… but you need a way to find those benefits that matter.

We can help you create a concrete developer engagement plan with our proven framework. And we’re much friendlier than Joe Friday.