| name | pm-personas |
| description | Create Pragmatic Institute buyer and user personas — archetypes grounded in real market evidence, written so the team stays connected to real people. Use when the PM asks about personas, "who is the buyer", "who is the user", target audience, ICP, or wants to make a persona come alive. Distinguishes the buyer (makes/influences the purchase) from the user (uses it daily). Produces a Buyer Persona and a User Persona as a Markdown or Word .docx artifact. |
| allowed-tools | Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep |
Personas (Pragmatic Framework: Planning → Buyer Personas & User Personas)
Rule: Teams that understand personas and their problems build remarkable products.
A persona is an archetype built from observed patterns, not a fictional character
you invented. Ground every trait in market evidence (interviews, win/loss, support,
usage). See ../pm-copilot/references/framework.md for the market-driven basics.
- Buyer persona — the archetypical person who makes or influences the purchase
decision (motivations, barriers, buying process). Guides marketing and sales.
- User persona — the archetypical person who uses the product day to day.
Guides the product. In B2B the buyer and user are usually different people — build
one of each. Create a separate persona whenever the problems genuinely differ.
The Interview Matrix (get a balanced cross-section)
Before writing personas, make sure you've talked to a balanced sample. Map who to
interview across segments and persona types:
| Segments | Buyer Personas (Economic · Technical · Functional) | User Personas (User 1 · User 2 · User 3) |
|---|
| Segment A | who fills each buyer role | who the day-to-day users are |
Buyer roles: Economic (owns the budget/ROI), Technical (gatekeeps on fit/risk),
Functional (uses the outcome, champions internally). Balance interviews across all
four market segments: customers, competitors' customers, evaluators (win/loss) and
potentials.
Interview the user for inputs (batch questions)
- Which product/feature and market segment is this persona for?
- Is this a buyer or a user persona? (Do both if B2B.)
- What problems/roadblocks does this person have (their words, first person)?
- What are their goals — who they want to be, what they want to do, how they want to feel?
- What behaviors shape how they approach those goals?
- Their background — how did they get to their current situation/outlook?
- What evidence backs this (how many interviews/tickets/win-loss notes)?
Artifact templates
User Persona
# User Persona — <Name>
**Company:** <company> · **Feature / Product:** <feature / product name>
**Author:** <author> · **Date created:** <date>
**Name:** <memorable name + role> | **Segment:** <segment>
**Relevant Information:** <age/role/context that matters for the product>
> "<A quote in their own voice that captures their outlook.>"
## Problems
Roadblocks that keep them from achieving their goals (first person):
- "I can't …"
- "It takes too long to …"
## Background Story
<Enough story to explain how they got to their >
· > TODO:
Buyer Persona
# Buyer Persona — <Name>
**Company:** <company> · **Feature / Product:** <feature / product name>
**Author:** <author> · **Date created:** <date>
**Name / Role:** <name> | **Buyer type:** Economic / Technical / Functional
**Segment:** <segment>
> "<quote capturing what they care about in a purchase>"
## Problems & goals (business outcome they're buying)
- <problem in first person> · <the outcome/ROI they need>
## Buying process & barriers
- **How they buy:** <steps, who else is involved, timeline>
-
·
· > TODO:
Deliver the artifact
Follow ../pm-copilot/references/artifact-output.md: confirm inputs, ask Markdown
or .docx, write the .md, convert to .docx on request via your environment's native document-creation capability.
Deliver a buyer and a user persona where relevant. Next stage: use these personas to
write pm-positioning (per persona) or prioritized pm-requirements.
