Building Personas

Elaine ChenJanuary 2015

© 2015 ConceptSpring

Before we begin

2 classes of research

• Problem Research– To understand who the buyers and users are– To understand the problem statement– To understand the context in which the product will be

used– To understand use cases

• Solution Research– To understand the usability and utility of the product– To help prioritize the feature set– To understand pricing elasticity– To understand customer satisfaction

Common Methodologies

• Contextural interview• Observation / shadowing• Immersion• Longitudinal diary study• Photo essay• Usability benchmark• Focus groups• … etc

• Qualitative (<30 samples) • Quantitative (>1000 samples)

• Surveys– General interest– Conjoint analysis– Pricing studies

• Monadic• Multiple monadic• Van Westendorp• … etc

– Customer satisfaction: NPS, P/M fit

• Web testing– A/B split, Multivariate– Web analytics– … etcPersonas

What is a persona?

Image credit: http://www.slideshare.net/LeanStartupConf/jon-irwin-rocktheinterview-slides

Why make personas?

12

A persona helps align your team

“Personas are the personification of what you learn by truly and deeply listening to your market.”

– Jennifer Doctor, Managing Partner, Harborlight Partners; Author, “Flat Stanley Doesn’t Live Here”

Sausage making Step 1: Enumerate personas

Who is in your Decision MakingUnit (DMU)?

• Economic Buyer• Champion• Influencers• Veto powers• Users

Who is in your Decision MakingUnit (DMU)?

• Economic Buyer• Champion• Influencers• Veto powers• Users

Who is in your Decision MakingUnit (DMU)?

• Economic Buyer• Champion• Influencers• Veto powers• Users

Sausage making 2: Making each persona

Get out of the building

Example: Enterprise Source Code Management

• Company X: – Startup providing enterprise grade source code

management and collaboration tools• Product:

– Secure, open, productive, integrated source code management system that supports Git, Mercurial, SVN and integrates with standard tools

• Target market:– Enterprise software companies at scale (1000+

employees, $500M+ annual revenue)

Product positioningE

ase

of m

igra

tion

Low

Hig

h

Low HighEnterprise readiness: Comprehensive SCM management tools + ALM coverage

Awesome product from Company X

Decision making unit hypothesis

The Economic buyer: Jim, 48, the software exec

The Champion / Key Influencer:Bob, 34, the DevOps guru

The Influencer /User 1: Dan, 23, the cool kid

The Influencer / User 2: Vince, 52, the veteran

Jim manages about 300 people. At his level he isn’t close to the technical details anymore. He controls the budget and relies on Bob to recommend the right tools for the team to use.

Bob is head of a small DevOps team with 6 engineers servicing 300 SCM users. He does the due diligence and recommends solutions to Jim for approval.

Dan is a 23 year old computer science major who just graduated from a top school. He is an open source nut and strongly believes all dev tools should be free and open source.

Vince has 30+ years of experience working for companies from startup to IBM in scale. He believes there’s no free lunch – you must pay for the best tools (i.e. the one he used before

First focus: Jim, the economic buyer

The Economic buyer: Jim, 48, the software exec

The Champion / Key Influencer:Bob, 34, the DevOps guru

The Influencer /User 1: Dan, 23, the cool kid

The Influencer / User 2: Vince, 52, the veteran

Jim manages about 300 people. At his level he isn’t close to the technical details anymore. He controls the budget and relies on Bob to recommend the right tools for the team to use.

Bob is head of a small DevOps team with 6 engineers servicing 300 SCM users. He does the due diligence and recommends solutions to Jim for approval.

Dan is a 23 year old computer science major who just graduated from a top school. He is an open source nut and strongly believes all dev tools should be free and open source.

Vince has 30+ years of experience working for companies from startup to IBM in scale. He believes there’s no free lunch – you must pay for the best tools (i.e. the one he used before

Step 1: Develop the research protocol

• Goals / objectives• Methodology• Recruitment questionnaire• Recruitment strategy• Paperwork / incentives (NDA? Photo/Video release

form? Check?)• Equipment required (AV, laptop, etc)• Researchers name list and roles• Discussion guide

Step 2: Develop a hypothetical persona

2013 Revenue:$4.2BHeadcount:362,000BU Headcount:700Jim’s team300

Behaviors• Reports to the BU General Manager• Manages the software organization

(all aspects) and the associated budget

• Technically the best guy on staff• Makes all key decisions on tools and

systems for developers in his business unit

Demographics• 48 years old• Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT• Has been managing teams for 15

years. Hands on. Still writes code every day.

• Married with high school children• Drives a Toyota Prius• Carries a Samsung Note

Needs and goals• He wants his team to turn out the very

best code and is willing to pay a premium price for the best tools to support himself and his people

Step 3. Develop Recruitment Guidelines

• Company characteristics:– Fortune 500 or similar scale companies with 450+ employees– At least 100 employees in engineering organizations– Prefer US or Europe based companies (ok to have satellite offices

elsewhere as long as HQ is in the US or Europe)

• Subject characteristics:– Must have: Full time employee working as a software developer,

software development manager, or a devOps / tools and release engineer or engineering manager within a software organization

– Nice to have: Prefer managers who are well versed in the politics and process of decision making within the large organization

Step 4: Develop a discussion guide

Step 5: Recruit subjects

• Free– Your personal network– MIT alumni network– Your prospects – Your current customers– … etc

• Paid– Research agencies e.g. Fieldwork Boston– Lists e.g. momcentral– … etc

Step 6. Run the actual interviews

Interview do’s and don’ts

Do use these phrases:• Tell me the story of…• Tell me about the last

time…• Why?• Why not?• Say more about…• Tell me more…

Do talk much, much less than your interviewee

Don’t ever do this:• Ask yes/no or multiple

choice q’s (e.g. “on a scale of 1-5”…)

• Read the DG to the interviewee

The DG helps organize your thoughts. Internalize it, then go in with open ended q’s.

Step 7: Crunch the data

If things go well, convergence is rapid

In 5 interviews: subjects started self-

organizing

In 10 interviews: Top persona

hypotheses emerge

In 20 interviews: personas fully

validated

Step 8: Find patterns, build personas

2013 Revenue:$514MHeadcount:1000-2000BU Headcount:N/A – 1 BUJim’s team200

Behaviors• Reports to the BU General Manager• Manages the software organization (all

aspects) and the associated budget• Primarily concerned with strategy, leadership,

management – high level• Relies on direct reports (dev, devOps, SQA

managers) to recommend the right technical decisions

Demographics• 48 years old• Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering

degree from UNY Stony Brooks • Has been managing teams for 25 years;

last wrote production code 10 years ago• Married with high school children• Drives a Mercedes SUV• Mac, iPhone 5, iPad Mini, W8 for work

Needs and goals• Above all: his goal is to meet or exceed revenue

goals for his business unit by releasing software on time and as planned with marketing and sales

• He wants to keep the staff happy and to attract hot new talent to join his team

• He needs to conserve budget – fixed $/y to spend on tools, R&D – zero sums game

Be open minded! (Orange = new news)

2013 Revenue:$514MHeadcount:1000-2000BU Headcount:N/A – 1 BUJim’s team200

Behaviors• Reports to the BU General Manager• Manages the software organization (all

aspects) and the associated budget• Primarily concerned with strategy, leadership,

management – high level• Relies on direct reports (dev, devOps, SQA

managers) to recommend the right technical decisions

Demographics• 48 years old• Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering

degree from UNY Stony Brooks • Has been managing teams for 25 years;

last wrote production code 10 years ago• Married with high school children• Drives a Mercedes SUV• Mac, iPhone 5, iPad Mini, W8 for work

Needs and goals• Above all: his goal is to meet or exceed revenue

goals for his business unit by releasing software on time and as planned with marketing and sales

• He wants to keep the staff happy and to attract hot new talent to join his team

• He needs to conserve budget – fixed $/y to spend on tools, R&D – zero sums game

Hypotheses that were invalidated

• Internal team structure – who’s who• Who decides what• Who does the core homework• Whether it is possible to do 1 sale to a 100,000 people

company• Core pain points• Calls to action / timing for action• Awareness of / readiness to adopt industry best

practices• Magnitude of internal friction• … etc

Taking Action

Refine Positioning Statement

• For [target customer]• Who wants/needs [a compelling reason to buy]• The [product name] is a [product category]• That provides [these key benefits].• Unlike [the main competitor],• The [product name] [provides these key differentiation

points].

Drive Product Strategy

• Redefine Unique Value Proposition (UVP) to meet needs/wants of economic buyer.

• For Company X:– Before: UVP is product centric and misses the biggest

pain: migration friction.• “Manage your source code in the most secure and

productive way in Git or Mercurial”– After: 2 UVPs tailored to needs of identified economic

buyer and their team• “Painless Migration to Git”• “Multiple System Support”

• Redefine product roadmap / priorities

Building Personas - reprise

• B2C is simple: user = buyer (except in gifting scenarios)

• Many more personas for B2B. Make sure you cover them all.

• Use qualitative techniques• Recruit carefully• Ask open ended questions• Be a good listener• Not a sales call – talk about them, not you• 20 interviews to a good persona• B2B is complicated – do what you can with what

access you have

Get out of the building!

Thank you@chenelaine blog.conceptspring.com