Alignment Personas: Introduction to the power of executive alignment

Join me for a 45-minute intro to some of the real (and very human) reasons why organizations full of great, talented people don't release awesome, useful products, and how executive alignment (using alignment personas) can make all the difference. This talk includes:

• The promise of personas and the problems we want them to solve.

• A brief history of personas.

• Why people roll their eyes about personas, and why I still love them (with caveats).

• How and why I refocused on executive alignment, and why alignment is more powerful than data.

• The difference between traditional personas and alignment personas:

  • Traditional personas translate and communicate data.

  • Alignment personas are hypotheses. They create and communicate executive alignment and give data a 'place to land.'

• Alignment personas in five conversations (the how-to)

  • 1. Let's play a game (business goals Mad Libs)

  • 2. Pretend you're a building (who is at the front door and why)

  • 3. Get needy (the pink stickies: "I want ..." and "I need...." statements)

  • 4. Persona-fy (identify differences-that-make-a-difference and give them names and faces)

  • 5. Pick the winners (prioritize alignment personas based on goals) The magical sentence that all companies need: "If we don't make Dana and Trey ridiculously happy, we won't hit our highest priority goals."