1-sentence descriptions of each Persona

• Helen the Hub Drives projects. Defines project plans. Facilitates discussions and communications within the team via meetings, email and documentation.
• Bart the Busy Body / Coordinator Collaborates heavily with the hub to help in their responsibilities. The Hub often delegates tasks to Busy Body / Coordinators once they have been more clearly defined. e.g. Writing up documentation. Organize events.
• Angie Apex Head of 1 or more organizations. Responsible for high-level strategic direction of the group.
• Eli the Executive Assistant Assistant to Apex. Primarily provides logistical support.
• Ivan the Individual Contributor Domain experts that actually DO the bulk of the work for any given project.

Questions about our Target Users

Answer the following questions for each user. Questions may have more than 1 appropriate answer. 'Can't answer this' is also an acceptable answer.

1. How old is this person? Age range?
A. In school
B. Fresh out of college
C. 3-5 years work experience
D. 5+ years work experience
E. 15+ years work experience

2. What is their education level?
A. H.S.
B. College
C. College equivalent work experience

3. How much of their time do they spend at their computer?
A. Less than 1 hour a day
B. A few hours a day
C. All day
D. All day and all night

4. Do they bring their computer to meetings?
A. Yes
B. No

5. How much does this person travel for work?
A. Every week
B. Once a month
C. Once every few months
D. Once or twice a year
E. Not all all

6. How connected is this person within their field.
A. Highly connected. Knows all the movers and shakers and then some.
B. Connected. Knows a wide range of people in the field, not necessarily all 'A-list' folks.
C. Not very connected. Has met a few other people in the same field.
D. Not connected at all.

7. How does this person deal with interruption?
A. Thrives on interruption. Gets bored if their doing one task for too long.
B. Finds distractions painful. Completely blows their concentration.

8. How does this person deal with parallel processing?
A. Always has multiple projects going on at once.
B. Likes to do things one at a time.

9. How many meetings / commitments does this person have?
A. Every day is full.
B. 5-10 per week.
C. 1-2 per week.
D. Rarely if ever.

10. How much writing does this person do in their job? e.g. Meeting notes, proposals, summaries of discussions and decisions that have been made.
A. Multiple write-ups per week.
B. One per week.
C. At the end of a big project.
D. Rarely if ever.

11. How many discussions does this person drive and facilitate?
A. Multiple discussions per week.
B. One per week.
C. Rarely if ever.

12. How many meeting agendas does this person set?
A. Multiple agendas per week.
B. One per week.
C. Rarely if ever.

13. What kind of tasks does this person have on their task list? Please provide an example of each kind of task.
A. Amorphous. Poorly defined.
B. Unpredictable.
C. Tasks stay on the task list for a long time growing into projects.
D. Concrete and well-defined.
E. Regularly recurring.
F. Tasks that can get checked off relatively quickly.

14. How regularly does this person collaborate with others on individual tasks? e.g. Setting the agenda for a meeting, writing up a summary of a discussion, scheduling activities for an all-day board meeting.
A. Is usually collaborating on multiple items with different people at the same time.
B. Usually collaborates on at least one item with one other person once a week.
C. Rarely, if ever.

15. How regularly does this person collaborate with someone outside of the organization?
A. Multiple times a week.
B. A few times a month.
C. Rarely, if ever.

Thought exercise?

• Why is answering these questions important for the design?
• What are examples of features in the design today that are derived from answers to these questions?

-- MimiYin - 09 Aug 2006