“My name is Maria and I’m a central part of your change programme.”

Who do you think of when you design your change efforts?

In many cases, it isn’t a “who” but a “what”.

A cursory glance at the topics at a handful of continuous improvement conferences highlights a typical focus:

• Organization Design
• Management Systems
• Business Processes
• Behaviours
• Strategy
• Technology
• “Excellence"

These are all relevant. But let’s be honest. They are things - concepts, categories, outcomes - not people.

Taking inspiration from the world of product, service and experience design, we like to place people - actual human beings with names, motives, desires, limitations and a sense of agency - at the centre of organizational transformation.

If we accept that it is people who make the difference between a sustainable improvement programme and one that adds to the dustbin of well-intentioned waste of everyone’s time and money, then it will be worth the effort to build a deep understanding of who they are, what they do (and why), what they are trying to do (and why), what motivates them and engage them in problem definition and solution design.

One of the ways in which this can be done is through the development of personas.

Personas are fictional characters based on real people (customers, employees, associates, external stakeholders), typically developed after a period of research and discovery using quantitative and qualitative methods. A persona will form a composite of attributes found in the group it represents, including demographic characteristics, motives, wants, needs, behaviours and personality.

While a persona will be depicted as a real person, with a name and background, it will refer to no specific, actual individual. A thoughtfully crafted persona will help change agents, researchers and problem solvers design solutions and ways of working (e.g., processes, structures, systems, etc.) with a specific someone in mind (as opposed to a “generic everybody”).

We recently conducted work at one of the world's largest art museums that involved mapping the visitor experience. The first thing we did was to think about the various visitor archetypes along a set of dimensions (for example, do they live locally or have they travelled from afar? How much discretion do they have in conducting their visit? etc.). We then developed a starter-set of four personas which our change agents “adopted” as they conducted their museum walkthrough - literally walking a mile (or two) in the visitor’s shoes!

The study revealed a number of areas for improvement, ranging from improved signage and wayfinding through to insights concerning the need to manage the energy levels of visitors during their tour (“The last thing I want to do after walking two miles with my kids is spend a lot of time and money at the museum store! I’m done!”). These insights would not have been possible, and certainly wouldn’t have carried the emotional and empathetic weight, without first defining and developing personas.

So, tell me ...

"Who is at the centre of your change programme? What’s their name? What’s their story?"