PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT
MODULE 8
CUSTOMER PERSONAS
Peter Commons
Senior Lecturer, OIM Department
Learning Outcomes
■ Understand the value of turning customer segments into personas
■ Understand how to use personas
■ Be able to create a persona
Agenda
■ What are Personas?
■ Persona creation practice
■ Persona ranking & best practices
08 - Personas.pptx
I don’t think Wile
E. would use that
because…
That feature
meets Road
Runner’s need
to…
How to use personas
■ Help inform product decision choices
– Ask “how would persona A think/feel/act?”
■ Help avoid bias, especially unconscious bias
– Asking “how would persona A think/feel/act?” is much safer
■ Only works if persona A is well-defined and understood!
■ Help make tradeoff decisions / prioritizations
– First: which personas do we think are the most important customers?
– Second: how important is “X” to each persona?
– More on this coming soon…
Bring
To
Life
Situation
Segmentation
Persona Format
■ Name
■ Demographics (age, job, etc.)
■ Psychographics (relevant attitudes, values &
motivations)
■ Behaviors & Tasks
■ Needs
■ Frustrations with existing solutions (if
applicable)
■ Environment (how/when they would use
product)
■ Skills (how familiar they are with skills related
to solutions)
■ Technology development lifecycle stage
Critical to add color:
■ Representative Photo
■ A few details that add color
■ Quote expressing what’s most
important to them
From: The Lean Product Playbook
From: venngage.com
From: venngage.com
From: justinmind.com
Corporate Personas
■ If you’re a B2B company, you should consider creating corporate personas
■ All the fields are still useful, just translate them to a company; for example:
– Demographic => company vertical, company size, etc.
– Needs => company needs (for the company to survive, grow) l
– Environment => how it would be integrated, competitors
– Skills => ability to integrate/manage the product vs. needing help with
either
Agenda
■ What are Personas?
■ Persona creation practice
■ Persona ranking & best practices
In-class Persona Practice
Remember Deplopinator, Inc.?
In your groups on mega-sticky pads, create a full persona for one of your
customer segments.
Persona creation (15 mins)
Persona sharing (3-5 teams, time permitting)
Take a picture of your final product as you will need that for your individual
assignment.
Class-Only
Slide
Agenda
■ What are Personas?
■ Persona creation practice
■ Persona ranking & best practices
Persona Ranking
Persona Ranking
From Amazon.com
Actually rank them
Rank Persona Why
1 Sarah
2 Malcolm
3 Kumar
4 Ingrid
Product Related “whys”:
- Highest needs/satisfaction delta
- Will gain benefits with smaller MVP
feature set
Business related whys:
- Untapped market
- TAM
- Already a fan of the company
- Fewer overhead/regulatory
requirements, processes, etc.
- Ability/interest in paying
Things to avoid with personas:
Forgetting they represent real
people
■ Don’t get too specific
– Remember this persona is representing a group of individuals …
– Don’t get confused and assume it’s just that one person
– Be very careful about some of the specific data that is there for color (e.g.
exact age of the person)
■ Be aware of Persona Drift, which happens two ways:
– Internally: your idea of the persona will change over time as you use them &
get used to them
– Externally: the representative group will change over time due to external
factors (e.g. a technology that used to be rare is now common)
Personas are great, but they aren’t actually customers.
Don’t forget to also engage with customers regularly, especially
once you have real artifacts (e.g. prototypes) to play with!
Things to avoid with personas:
Not using them properly/at all
■ Not using them properly:
– people not learning the personas and referencing them but incorrectly
■ Not using them at all:
– You did all the work to create them, but neither you nor anyone else
references them
Make sure you teach people about them & make sure you keep them visible!
Consider printing them on posters to put on the walls of people’s offices.
Personas: Key take-aways
■ Customer segments are valuable but boring.
■ You want customers in theory to be part of every meeting, but that’s not really
possible (or a good idea).
■ Personas bring life to customer segments in a way that you can bring them to
meetings.
■ Personas are a tool that, like all other tools, needs to be understood and used
properly to gain maximum effect.

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08 - Personas.pptx

  • 1. PRODUCT MANAGEMENT MODULE 8 CUSTOMER PERSONAS Peter Commons Senior Lecturer, OIM Department
  • 2. Learning Outcomes ■ Understand the value of turning customer segments into personas ■ Understand how to use personas ■ Be able to create a persona
  • 3. Agenda ■ What are Personas? ■ Persona creation practice ■ Persona ranking & best practices
  • 5. I don’t think Wile E. would use that because… That feature meets Road Runner’s need to…
  • 6. How to use personas ■ Help inform product decision choices – Ask “how would persona A think/feel/act?” ■ Help avoid bias, especially unconscious bias – Asking “how would persona A think/feel/act?” is much safer ■ Only works if persona A is well-defined and understood! ■ Help make tradeoff decisions / prioritizations – First: which personas do we think are the most important customers? – Second: how important is “X” to each persona? – More on this coming soon…
  • 7. Bring To Life Situation Segmentation Persona Format ■ Name ■ Demographics (age, job, etc.) ■ Psychographics (relevant attitudes, values & motivations) ■ Behaviors & Tasks ■ Needs ■ Frustrations with existing solutions (if applicable) ■ Environment (how/when they would use product) ■ Skills (how familiar they are with skills related to solutions) ■ Technology development lifecycle stage Critical to add color: ■ Representative Photo ■ A few details that add color ■ Quote expressing what’s most important to them
  • 8. From: The Lean Product Playbook
  • 12. Corporate Personas ■ If you’re a B2B company, you should consider creating corporate personas ■ All the fields are still useful, just translate them to a company; for example: – Demographic => company vertical, company size, etc. – Needs => company needs (for the company to survive, grow) l – Environment => how it would be integrated, competitors – Skills => ability to integrate/manage the product vs. needing help with either
  • 13. Agenda ■ What are Personas? ■ Persona creation practice ■ Persona ranking & best practices
  • 14. In-class Persona Practice Remember Deplopinator, Inc.? In your groups on mega-sticky pads, create a full persona for one of your customer segments. Persona creation (15 mins) Persona sharing (3-5 teams, time permitting) Take a picture of your final product as you will need that for your individual assignment. Class-Only Slide
  • 15. Agenda ■ What are Personas? ■ Persona creation practice ■ Persona ranking & best practices
  • 18. Actually rank them Rank Persona Why 1 Sarah 2 Malcolm 3 Kumar 4 Ingrid Product Related “whys”: - Highest needs/satisfaction delta - Will gain benefits with smaller MVP feature set Business related whys: - Untapped market - TAM - Already a fan of the company - Fewer overhead/regulatory requirements, processes, etc. - Ability/interest in paying
  • 19. Things to avoid with personas: Forgetting they represent real people ■ Don’t get too specific – Remember this persona is representing a group of individuals … – Don’t get confused and assume it’s just that one person – Be very careful about some of the specific data that is there for color (e.g. exact age of the person) ■ Be aware of Persona Drift, which happens two ways: – Internally: your idea of the persona will change over time as you use them & get used to them – Externally: the representative group will change over time due to external factors (e.g. a technology that used to be rare is now common) Personas are great, but they aren’t actually customers. Don’t forget to also engage with customers regularly, especially once you have real artifacts (e.g. prototypes) to play with!
  • 20. Things to avoid with personas: Not using them properly/at all ■ Not using them properly: – people not learning the personas and referencing them but incorrectly ■ Not using them at all: – You did all the work to create them, but neither you nor anyone else references them Make sure you teach people about them & make sure you keep them visible! Consider printing them on posters to put on the walls of people’s offices.
  • 21. Personas: Key take-aways ■ Customer segments are valuable but boring. ■ You want customers in theory to be part of every meeting, but that’s not really possible (or a good idea). ■ Personas bring life to customer segments in a way that you can bring them to meetings. ■ Personas are a tool that, like all other tools, needs to be understood and used properly to gain maximum effect.