Enterprise Intranet Personas (workshop)

ENTERPRISE INTRANET PERSONAS: USING USER RESEARCH TECHNIQUES & PERSONAS TO DRIVE INTRANETS & INTERNAL/ENTERPRISE PORTAL PROGRAMS 

A ONE-HALF TO ONE DAY AND ONE-HALF WORKSHOP (WHEN RUN IN-HOUSE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION)

Contact:  Howard McQueen, Workshop Leader & Facilitator 
                  Howard@mcq.com  | USA (912) 596.3713

Workshop Description
The value of “know thy customer and the tasks they must accomplish” if realized, can be a strategic advantage in driving intranets and enterprise portal initiatives.  Much work has been done using modern user research tools, including personas, but 99% of this work has focused on external customers (buyers, consumers, etc.).   Howard has been applying these tools with internal customers since 2002.  If you want to learn how to apply these tools and methodologies to internal audiences to represent "the voice of the staff" and develop user "assets", and represent their desired business outcomes, this workshop will give you and your organization intranet and/or portal program a User RoadMap & Methodology for success.

Join Howard McQueen, international intranet consultant and thought leader as he shares how to use a variety of innovative user research techniques, including designing, marketing, communicating and embedding persona advocates in the design and development of intranets and portals--targeted at internal customers.  

Howard will show how to select the right mix of user research activities, how to rapidly analyze user research (both quantitative data and qualitative observations) to create compelling deliverables--capable of changing the culture and driving user-centric business value.  Having a variety of deliverables and a communications campaign for each audience segement enables the savvy manager to motivate various sponsors and unify the executive group to make informed business investment decisions.   

Howard’s work has enabled organizations to test, pilot and begin the journey to become user-centric.  He has assisted global organizations with their enterprise portal initiatives.  He has introduced organizations to rapid usability testing and shown time and again, how to correct serious flaws to the user experience before key intranet applications and user interfaces are released.  His work extends to facilitating and mentoring and establishing  content contributor communities of practice (CoP).  His user-centric methodology is inclusive of programs that extend to the contributor side, including selection and implementation of content management systems.   Howard is prepared to extemporaneously address questions relating to all these and other topics.    

He will also talk about a number of lessons learned, enabling you to avoid the pitfalls of improperly using personas.  

Workshop Duration: 1/2 day (can be expanded to a full-day or 1.5 days if run in-house)

Participant Skill level: Novice

Target Audience: Internal Comm. Managers, Intranet Managers and intranet teams, usability personnel, web publishers, web contributors, user interface designers, all intranet service providers providing self-service applications, analysts (responsible for developing user/system requirements) and all positions responsible for improving the use, findability, accessibility and personalization (increased relevancy) to information and self-service applications.

BACKGROUND FOR THIS WORKSHOP
This McQueen workshop was developed by Howard McQueen and a number of his affiliate consultants in the summer of 2008.  Based upon global research earlier in 2008, Howard identified that 99% of persona work was focused on external buyer / consumer personas.  Howard concluded "The lack of focus and attention for using modern user research techniques for internal customers is a huge void that needs to be addressed". 

Howard has been developing internal customer personas and conducting user research and usability-testing for internal customers since early 2002.  After writing the cutting-edge article "Using Persona Advocates to Develop Information Solutions & Portals"., Howard decided to take this the next step and deliver this innovative workshop offering.  A number of workshop dates have already been booked for 2009 (see the home page for details)