I can tell you my experience of having witnessed some companies move to “slack”, “Jira” etc. There were multiple similar cases.

It went something like this:

“We are now ‘agile’

Ok what are all the cool agile dev ops companies using?

Aha Jira&Slack. Ok let’s use that”

From there it gets even more crazy. The tools get included as a standard question for evaluating vendors on RFP’s. Vendors that use a similar toolset are rated more highly.

When you question why. The response is along the lines of:

“Oh if they are using Jira/slack/other tool, it must be an agile/dev ops/chat ops shop”

Put another way sometimes these tools end up being used as a “signal” to others rather than intrinsic value. The value is in the signalling, driven by social proof.

If one can pull this of when marketing your product you have a win. Effectively you have associated a movement (I.e agile) with your product (I.e Jira). So the buy decision is driven by the need to show they are doing {x}.

There must be some basis Of this and reading on how this is done? The broad topic would be marketing but what specifically?

Notes:

* This is merely an observation. I am not judging the accuracy of the statement that using a specific product = demonstrating some property.

These associations may not be applicable in all markets and I have seen them change over time.