Facilitated by TJ. Badru.
Transform stakeholder insights into user personas and clearly defined problems. Learn to articulate user needs and create shared understanding.
Building on Discovery:
his session takes the insights from stakeholder interviews and transforms them into tools that will guide the entire project: user personas and problem definitions.
What Are User Personas:
• Fictional representations of real user types
• Based on research and data, not assumptions
• Include goals, motivations, pain points, behaviors
• Help team empathize with users throughout development
• Guide design and feature prioritization decisions
Creating Effective Personas:
• Identifying distinct user types for our features
• Giving personas names and backgrounds
• Defining goals and motivations
• Documenting pain points and frustrations
• Adding behavioral patterns and preferences
User Personas for Our Projects:
Donation Feature Personas:
• Active Community Members (regular attendees wanting to give back)
• Grateful Alumni (those who got jobs and want to contribute)
• One-Time Contributors (visitors who attended a few valuable sessions)
Resource Library Personas:
• New Students (just starting their Agile journey)
• Active Practitioners (applying Agile in their current roles)
• Job Seekers (preparing for interviews and certifications)
Problem Definition Workshop:
• Writing clear problem statements
• Using the “How Might We” framework
• Articulating the gap between current and desired state
• Prioritizing which problems to solve first
• Ensuring problems are user-focused, not solution-focused
User Journey Mapping:
• Mapping current user journeys (as-is)
• Identifying pain points and opportunities
• Designing future user journeys (to-be)
• Finding moments that matter most
• Validating journeys against personas
Workshop Activities:
• Build personas for your assigned feature
• Write problem statements as a team
• Create user journey maps
• Present personas to the group
• Get feedback and refine
Practical Exercises:
• Role-play as different personas
• Walk through scenarios from persona perspectives
• Identify design implications for each persona
• Prioritize which personas to focus on first
What You’ll Deliver This Week:
• 2-3 detailed user personas per feature
• Clear problem statements for each persona
• User journey maps (current state and future state)
• Insights about user needs and pain points
• Preliminary feature ideas based on personas
Benefits of Attending This Session:
Participants will create research-backed user personas, clearly articulate the problems we’re solving, understand user needs deeply, and have tools to guide all future project decisions. Personas ensure we build the right things for the right reasons.