Characters at work - The use of personas in product management - brainmates

Characters at work The use of personas in product management Page no. White paper | presentation July 2010

Overview Adrienne Tan, co-founder of brainmates has published a white paper on a topic that is highly relevant to product managers.  The origin of the persona tool  Use of personas and their benefits  Types of persona including primary and secondary buyers, negative personas and family personas  Tips and guidelines on good persona development  Ways to avoid pitfalls and challenges related to personas To get your free copy of the white paper please email info@brainmates.com.au

Product managers love to solve problems Effective product management requires practitioners to solve lucrative customer problems that drive significant value for businesses over a period of time. The brainmates Product Delivery Cycle provides a structure that defines tools and activities that help companies deliver profitable products and services Personas can be used to help to define, develop and deploy products that solve customer problems.

What are personas?

A key tool for product managers User personas are “archetypical” customers of a product or service User personas bridge the gap between an abstract target market group and real customers. Developing a persona helps product managers focus on the goals, motivations and behaviours of their target customer and provides a meaningful way of focussing on the whole target market group.

Benefits of creating personas

Benefits of creating personas  Encourage product managers to think of the buyer and/or user of their product  Distil large target markets into a single person that stakeholders can relate to and understand  Provide a focal point for planning and help solve disagreements over product decisions  Provide product managers with solid evidence against other interest groups who are making uninformed or snap decisions

It’s easier to satisfy your customer when you know your customer

Developing a persona helps keep product definition and development focused on the customer which in turn leads to revenue generation and achievement of business goals and objectives Knowing the customer helps businesses to make the right product decisions and deliver optimal value to the customer If the customer’s needs and wants are met then customers are more likely to be satisfied. This will help the business to differentiate and stand-out from the competition

A brief history of personas 10

A brief history of personas  The term user persona was coined by Alan Cooper in 1998 in his book ‘The inmates are running the asylum’  User personas were borne to prevent software from being developed in an ad hoc, random or accidental manner  User personas helped teams ensure products were user driven, not feature driven  Personas are now a heavily researched area of product management, development and related disciplines

Use of personas today Product managers, user experience designers and developers use personas to:  Fuel ideation and development processes  Create products and services including physical goods, retail experiences, software applications and more  Test, refine and improve the experiences involved in using products and services  Anticipate future opportunities  Identify factors of value on which to differentiate from competitors

Types of personas 13

Types of personas Several personas can be created and each provides different insights that help in product design, development and deployment  Primary persona  Secondary persona  Negative persona  Group or family persona Learn more about the definition, development of, and uses of each of these person types in the full white paper. Freely available by contacting info@brainmates.com.au

When to create personas Personas should be developed during the Product Planning stage The Market Requirements articulate customer requirements which may include buyers and users. It’s best to ensure a solid understanding of the ‘customer’ before preparing requirements that feed into later stages of product requirements

How to create personas 16

How to create personas Creating personas requires a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The steps below explain the subsequent process and these are defined in full detail in the white paper. 1. Market segmentation 2. Customer research – primary and secondary 3. Complete persona – using the brainmates persona template To get your free copy of the white paper please email info@brainmates.com.au

Persona beware! There are some common pitfalls and risks associated with creating personas:  Be focused – where appropriate, it’s better to create multiple personas than to try to wrap different customers into one  Don’t act on assumptions or hunches – base persona details on real, accurate and validated information  Ensure you review personas with all stakeholders – customer service, operations, sales, research, marketing and other staff  Where possible, gather direct input from real customers

Ultimately, it’s about understanding your customers 19

Conclusions The use of personas in product management and related disciplines can help internal and external stakeholders to better understand the target market and customers. These ‘Characters’ help bring life to otherwise dry and complex statistics and profiles. Personas transform data and details into true and meaningful insight. Personas are a useful tool for product managers in the definition, development and deployment of products and services

Request the white paper email info@brainmates.com.au to request your free copy

Product innovation and design. brainmates leads companies to define, develop and deploy customer-centric products and services. Phone: +61 (2) 9232 8147 Email: info@brainmates.com.au Web: www.brainmates.com.au Page no.

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Characters at work - The use of personas in product management - brainmates

by brainmates on Jul 12, 2010

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Characters at work - The use of personas in product management - brainmates — Presentation Transcript