Working with New Black

Working with New Black

Our initial baby steps together

Whether you've been working with New Black and EVA for years, or we've only just met, we'd like to give you a few handholds to better understand the processes surrounding EVA and our Way of Working. From a general insight into our communication flows and all the channels available to you, to our EVA architecture, and everything in between to get you started and up to speed.

Communication

Let's kick it off with who your focal point of contacts would be, their expertise, and the modes of communication we will establish together.

Who are my points of contact?

If you are just starting out with EVA, you have probably already met some of the roles during your onboarding phase. In general, you will encounter the following roles the most:

Support

Our support heroes, on guard 24/7 if ever you need help with an incident.

After your initial conversations with PMOs, SMEs and TLs on getting started with EVA, we help you by either answering your practical questions during implementation or directing your question towards the appropriate SME.
If you feel information is missing from Docs, we either help you find it, or direct your request towards the Docs team to make the information available.
In case of possible incidents, we either help by explaining the functionality, involve appropriate Devs to fix any bugs or instruct you on the RFC process if necessary.

Project Management Officer - PMO

Your day-to-day contact person linking between your project team and the New Black project team.

We support you, the customer, in successfully implementing EVA and rolling it out to various markets and geographies. We do this by overseeing, managing, and securing the timelines of implementation and configuration of EVA - from New Black’s perspective.
We monitor the ticket delivery process in such a way that your expectations are met while maintaining a clear and realistic view on our own view and philosophy for EVA. We do this through the weekly refinement sessions and the updates we provide via JIRA.
We are your day-to-day main point of contact, linking you to the New Black technical resources (SMEs, POs, Architects) - both for operational and non-operational purposes. We also keep you appraised of important deadlines and ensure transparency between our organisations.
We will highlight bottlenecks and challenges in both directions (towards your organisation and towards New Black), and we will ensure the timely involvement of the right stakeholders for a solution.
We will be your first line of escalation, if it is necessary, and make sure your concerns are heard and addressed by the right people.

Subject Matter Expert - SME

Customer-facing experts on specific subjects.

Organizing Workshops: SMEs organize and lead workshops in their areas of expertise, aiming to educate and enhance the skills of other employees and customers.
Responding to help and implementation tickets: They are pivotal in answering help and implementation questions, providing support, and troubleshooting issues within their expertise.
Customer Engagement Sessions: SMEs conduct sessions with customers to aid in the implementation of specific products or services, such as EVA, ensuring customers understand and can effectively use the product.
Checking and Challenging RFC Tickets: SMEs review and challenge Request for Change (RFC) tickets submitted by customers. This involves assessing the feasibility and impact of the requested changes on the existing system or processes.
Explaining RFC Tickets to Product Development: They play a crucial role in bridging the gap between customers and the product development team. SMEs explain the technical details and the necessity of RFCs to ensure the development team understands customer needs and priorities.
Guiding Development Teams: SMEs provide knowledge and guidance to development teams during the refinement of development tickets. They ensure that the teams have the necessary information and understanding to effectively work on the enhancements or changes.

Transformation lead - TL

Your strategic contact when it comes to overarching, unifying/contextual commerce ambitions.

Initiate & Plan

Develop relationships between key customer stakeholders and New Black to enhance joint collaborative success.
Establish a robust framework for program governance, including escalation and oversights, to ensure consistent progress and effective program delivery.

Deliver

Facilitate seamless communication within New Black and third-party providers for the customer to promote a cohesive and collaborative project approach.
Oversee all commercial interactions between the customer and New Black and provide recommendations accordingly.
Lead the execution of Quarterly Business Reviews, providing analysis and guidance to navigate the customers transformation initiatives.

Grow

Strategically cultivate and enable EVA alongside with customers, employing forward-thinking tactics to enhance their position in the dynamic realm of Unified Commerce (adapting to change!)
Have the customer growth and success top of mind, highlighting and celebrating collaborative triumphs and showcasing these wherever possible.

Channels

A definition of all the channels we use to communicate with you, what each entails, how to get access, and more.

EVA 1 platform

Bookmark EVA 1Platform since this will be your all-in-one hub to seamlessly access all our essential resources.

Docs website

We believe that self-sufficiency and knowledge make our customer successful, so docs.newblack.io is the beating heart for everything around EVA. The docs portal contains how-to-guides, examples, release notes, API references and integration details. Once you've gained initial access, you can manage which of your colleagues should have access as well by going to your Profile page (if you have Admin rights) or by asking your PMO to send invites when needed.

First time access

If you're somehow reading this but don't have access yet to Docs website, please contact your New Black Project Management Officer.

E-mail

Once you've gotten access to Docs, release notes, hotfixes and announcements are available on our Drops page. You can optionally subscribe to the following notifications by ticking the corresponding checkboxes on your Profile page or by using the Subscribe to receive updates button on the Drops page.

Core release notes: Weekly release notes of added, improved, or fixed features and functionalities made to EVA backend (core).
Drop release notes: Monthly release notes detailing added, improved, or fixed features and functionalities to EVA Admin Suite, App Suite, or Docs, such as new pages, assessments, or page revamps.
Important news: Important announcements, sent on a per-need basis
Other news: General communication, infrequent
Web Hotfixes: Comms on any hotfixes made to our web UI - Admin Suite
App Hotfixes: Comms on any hotfixes made to any of our Apps

Support desk

New Black Support can assist you with help & implementation questions or incidents.

Help & implementation tickets: used to help clients implement new functionality or ask general questions (if that information is not available in our docs). These tickets are generally directed to specialized teams or SMEs within New Black. This also allows us to identify gaps in our documentation and establish a feedback loop for improvement.
Incident tickets: used to report breaking issues to production environments that are directly impacting business.

Before contacting support, please review our Support ticket guidelines.

First time access

To gain access to the Support desk tool, please contact your head of IT to request access by means of a new Help & Implementation ticket via our support desk - or, if not possible, your PMO within New Black.

JIRA

If you have a request for a change to EVA, you can plan it by means of a ticket in JIRA. See our Planning development docs for details.

First time access

If you don't have access to Jira yet, please contact your New Black Project Management Officer.

Meeting rounds

So what about meetings? The fewer, the better, but there are a few meetings that make sense to have on a regular basis. These are the ones in which we make decisions together or improve our collaboration.

Refinement sessions that address requests placed on the EVA development roadmap.

Outcome: Clear decisions on unclear JIRA tickets (if any);
Input: Discuss Jira ticket(s) flagged with Needs Info (if any);
Involvement: SME + Ticket requester (e.g. product owner or business analyst with full background/details pertaining to the requested development);
Frequency: Weekly.

A weekly slot in your calendar that can be utilized by a New Black SME should the need arise to discuss requested developments, ask questions, or seek clarifications on requested development(s).

PMO alignment

Project steering meeting with the project team and New Black Project Management Officer.

Outcome: Identified risks and potential blockers, made sure that the project is on track and that New Black isn’t blocking;
Input: Project plan, potential risks and impediments, update on (potential) development tickets statuses;
Involvement: Customer Project Manager, Implementation Partner Rep, New Black PMO;
Frequency: Weekly or Bi-weekly.

what we consider projects

This is best explained by means of examples:

You're currently replacing your ecommerce front end to EVA headless commerce, this is very much a distinct project that begets a different type of involvement from our side: a project!.

Your stores are running business as usual, some tweaks and improvements are requested via the release and are delivered with regular interval: not a project.

TL alignment (strategic meeting)

Strategic meeting with your New Black Transformation Lead.

Outcome: Market/Product insights, identified opportunities and next steps, customer relationship;
Input: To hear it from you, your vision, insights and project performance;
Involvement: New Black TL and senior level management (customer);
Frequency: Weekly / Bi-weekly / Quarterly.

Retrospective

A meeting to look back on the collaboration between you and New Black so far, to see what lessons can be learned.

Outcome: Action points that will improve the way of working;
Input: Anything that worked really well in the past period, or the opposite: something you think slowed you down or held you back;
Involvement: Senior level management (customer and New Black);
Frequency: Monthly / Bi-monthly.