Project Management

Put Your Users First—Here’s How

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by Christian Bisson, PMP, PSPO, PSM

In agile, users are everything. So it only makes sense that users—anyone who will use or interact with your product—should be a team’s main focus. In order for the product to be viable, whatever is produced must bring them value.

But it’s perhaps too easy to forget users when you build your backlog. We often jump too quickly to features, assuming “the users will use this.” But what if we took a step back? Consider taking the following steps:

Identify Your Target Audience

First, for whom is this product intended? Identifying a target audience will help you determine who you’re building for.

For example, if you expect users who aren’t tech-savvy, then you need to be mindful of how complex the interface or even the wording are throughout.

It’s important to describe these users. One common practice is to create “personas,” which are fictional characters that represent the users. These will help you better understand your audience.

Understand Their Goals

Now that we know our audience, what are they trying to achieve? Instead of jumping from personas to features, stop and think about their goals.

Are they trying to purchase something online? Are they trying to fetch information? Are they trying to plan a trip? The answers to these questions will shape your direction.

Predict Their Path Forward

We know who is trying to achieve what. The next key step is to define “how” the users are going to achieve their goals.

Let’s assume the user wants to purchase a toy. That user will most likely need to:

  • Search to find toys
  • Be able to view the toys
  • Add a toy to a cart
  • Make the official purchase

Let’s keep it simple. We can extrapolate that this user might be interested in items related to this item, or many other scenarios, but for now, the above is our user’s steps.

Once this is clearly defined, it is much simpler for:

  • Our product owner to create user stories clearly stating what the user needs and for what: “As a customer, I want to search for products by categories so I can more easily find what I am looking for.”
  • Our development team to understand why this (these) features matter, and how we’ll architect them, because we understand why we are doing it.

Keep Users Top of Mind

I’ve seen too many teams skip these important steps. Often, people are so quick to execute what is instructed by managers, or by assumptions from the team, that they forget to think about who they are building the product for. The user, of course, will ultimately decide the product’s success. That’s why it’s so important that our product brings value to users.

What do you do to focus on users? How do you verify if you are bringing value to them? Share!

Posted by Christian Bisson on: June 19, 2019 09:36 PM | Permalink

Comments (6)

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Sripriya Narayanasamy Author, Say Yes to Project Success| Director, KeyResultz Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
Very informative. Thank you.

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Drew Craig Sr. Agile & Product Coach| Vanguard Philadelphia, Pa, USA
Thank you, Christian. Agreed. And why the Product Owner role is so vital along with the regular ceremonies for inspect & adapt feedback loops.

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Wade Harshman Scrum Master| GDIT Indianapolis, In, USA
Good read. Too many organizations lose focus on the customer, regardless of how they're structured or which framework they're using.

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Eduin Fernando Valdes Alvarado Project Manager| F y F Fabricamos Futuro Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia
Thanks for sharing

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Priya Patra Delivery Director| Capgemini India Technology Services Ltd Mumbai, India
Awesome, many a times we are excited to use the coolest technology without thinking about what the user needs. Agile enabled us to discover those user needs and thereby improving the chances of success

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Collins Aluga Senior Administration Officer/Property Management| Postbank Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
Great article

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