When Product Managers begin their jobs, the focus tends to be on what is the biggest game-changer of a product/product enhancement they can ship. Oftentimes, understanding the user is the key part of the process that gets lost in this shuffle. During this talk, Sunny went over the importance of understanding the user, techniques on how to work with UX Researchers, triangulating these qualitative findings with hard data and crafting your roadmap with this information.

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7. Sunny Chalam
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

8. Building Products Around User Personas
By Sunny Chalam
Senior Product Manager, Procore Technologies

9. Agenda
My background (5 mins)
Role of a PM (10
mins)
1
2
3 Building & using user personae (15 mins)
4 Creating a backlog around these (10 mins)

10. Agenda
My background
Role of a
PM
1
2
3 Building & using user personae
4 Creating a backlog

11. Jacksonville, FL - the greatest city in the South, probably
America, possibly the world….

12. College

13. That fun period right after college

14. Work

15. Agenda
My background
Role of a
PM
1
2
3 Building & using user personae
4 Creating a backlog

16. “Politics is the art of the possible, the
attainable…the art of next best” -
Otto von Bismarck

17. “Product Management is the art of
the ship-able…the art of whatever we
can get out there”
- One of my mentors @LI

18. Product Strategy
• Medium/Long-Term
• Broader business
strategy
Operational Thinking
• Short-term
• What’s the team
doing this week?
Challenge

19. WHAT?
Build shared understanding around basic questions

20. What are you building?
• What features does
your product have?
• What is the scope of
the release?
• How are you
addressing the
customer problem?
• What’s next…
THE SOLUTION SPACE
WHAT?
Backlogs/Roadmaps are a KEY feature of the product management
First Question

21. WHAT?
Basic
Questions
WHY?

22. Why are you building that
product?
• What is the EXACT
problem that you are
really trying to solve for?
• What is the scope of the
problem?
• How widespread is the
problem?
• What metric are you
trying to move?
• Is it a business problem
or a user problem?
THE PROBLEM SPACE
WHAT? WHY?
Basic
Questions

23. WHAT? WHY?
Cool products that
no one uses or
that serve no
purpose to your
business

24. WHAT? WHY?
Analysis Paralysis

25. WHAT? WHY?
FOR WHOM?

26. WHAT? WHY?
FOR WHOM?

27. Agenda
My background
Role of a
PM
1
2
3 Building & using user personas
4 Creating a backlog

28. Why is this important?
“You never really understand a
person until you consider things
from his point of view... Until you
climb into his skin and walk around
in it.” - Atticus Finch

29. Finding the right people
People whose problem you’re solving (start-up)
Current users (improvements)
1
2
3 Non-users (growth strategy)
4 Churned users (win-back campaigns)

30. Finding the right people
People whose problem you’re solving (start-up)
Current users (improvements)
1
2
3 Non-users (growth strategy)
4 Churned users (win-back campaigns)
Interview AS MANY people as you can

31. Building the user persona
Demographic Information
Who they are, going into and out of the product

32. Building the user persona
Demographic Information
Name Age Role
A picture can even
help here.
Could indicate how
willing they are to
take up the product
B2B: How will they
interact with your
product
Who they are, going into and out of the product

33. Building the user persona
Usage Profile
Why are/aren’t they using this product?

34. Building the user persona
Usage Profile
Motivations Goals Problems
What would make
them try/not try the
product?
What are they hoping
to achieve by using
this product?
Where does their
current solution fall
short today?
Why are/aren’t they using this product?

35. Sample personas
Source: UX Pressia

36. Sample personas
Source: UX Pressia

37. Pitfalls of User
Personas
The vocal minority
Fitting the next user to the previous user
1
2
3 Focusing on what the user asks for, not the problem

38. Agenda
My background
Role of a
PM
1
2
3 Building & using user personae
4 Creating a backlog/roadmap

39. What many 1st time product backlogs look like:

40. What many 1st time product backlogs look like:

41. How product leaders sometimes make backlogs:

42. How product leaders sometimes make backlogs:

43. Effective backlogs are always defined by user stories
As a [user type], I want [product]
so that I can [purpose]

44. USE THE USER
PERSONAS
As a user, I want clean navigation so
that I can solve problems quicker

45. USE THE USER
PERSONAS
As a user, I want clean navigation so
that I can solve problems quicker

46. USE THE USER
PERSONAS
As a user, I want clean navigation so
that I can solve problems quicker
(FOR WHOM?) (WHAT?)
(WHY?)

47. USE THE USER
PERSONAS

48. USE THE USER
PERSONAS
NOW, you have a backlog!

49. Some closing thoughts…
User story backlogs always scale
Data should verify the goal, NOT be the goal
1
2
3 Share this info with the team along the way

50. Q&A

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