Context

In July 2018, the product team responsible for Plurall was restructured, bringing individual contributors, managers, and products from four different companies and cities to work together in the same solution.

But the teams weren't the only thing new to everyone. The majority of my coworkers didn't know well who was the users they'll build the solutions to.

Although there had been an exhaustive user research a few months later, which resulted in the mapping of 7 different personas, they didn't have the buy-in expected, once the effort was an isolated initiative and was conducted by only one person (myself).

Five of the seven personas created in 2018

Problems

The main problems we wanted to address were:

• The product team didn't know who the users were and what they needed.
• The previous persona mapping was an individual exercise.
• There were too many personas.
• The framework used was neither appealing nor actionable.

Goals

To solve the problems above, our goals were:

• Establish a common language about the users' needs, frustrations, behaviors, and motivations.
• Make the initiative a collaborative exercise.
• Reduce the number of personas.
• Adopt a more visual and succinct framework.

Methodology

To address the problems enlisted, and to achieve the intended goals, the methodology most indicated would be a workshop with stakeholders.

As Stephanie Marsh states in her book "User Research: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Products and Services",