Defining the Who: Creating Comprehensive Personas for All Stakeholders in the Product Ecosystem

Map the human terrain of an existing product before changing its landscape

When taking over an existing product as a new product manager, one of the most powerful first steps is to understand the complete ecosystem of stakeholders already invested in your product. While many product transitions focus on feature audits and roadmap planning, I've found that mapping the human elements of the product ecosystem provides the greatest leverage for driving successful change.

🧩 Inheriting a Stakeholder Blind Spot

As a new product manager for an established product, you're likely inheriting not just code and features, but also:

• 🤝 Established relationships with sales teams who've developed their own narratives about the product

• 🎧 Customer support agents with institutional knowledge about common issues

• 🔧 Implementation specialists who've created workarounds for limitations

• 💼 Executive sponsors with specific expectations about the product's future

• 📣 Marketing teams who've positioned the product in particular ways

• 💻 Engineering teams with technical debt and historical context

• 👥 Existing customers with entrenched usage patterns and expectations

These stakeholders have already formed opinions, workflows, and relationships around your product. Ignoring this reality doesn't just create friction—it can undermine your ability to successfully lead the product forward.

🔍 Building on Previous Work: Evaluating Existing Personas

Before creating new stakeholder personas, take the time to review any personas developed by previous product managers. These artifacts can provide valuable insights:

• 📅 Examine how outdated these personas might be – have market conditions or user behaviours changed?

• 🕳️ Look for gaps in stakeholder representation – which groups were overlooked?

• 📊 Assess the methodology used – were personas based on actual research or assumptions?

• 📝 Note which personas were actively used by the team versus ignored

• 🧠 Consider how these personas influenced previous product decisions

Even flawed or incomplete existing personas tell you something important about how the product team understood its ecosystem. Use them as a starting point while being prepared to significantly expand or revise them.

🗺️ Beyond User Research: Mapping the Existing Stakeholder Ecosystem

When taking over a product, conduct comprehensive stakeholder mapping before making significant changes. This process is distinct from traditional user research and focuses on understanding the internal and external ecosystem that has evolved around your product.

✏️ Stakeholder Persona Development for an Existing Product

For an established product, your stakeholder personas should capture:

1. 📜 Historical context - How has their relationship with the product evolved?

2. 😣 Current pain points - What frustrates them about the product today?

3. 🔄 Informal workarounds - What unofficial processes have they developed?

4. 💡 Institutional knowledge - What unwritten rules or insights do they possess?

5. 😨 Expectations and fears - What concerns do they have about potential changes?

6. 🕸️ Influence networks - Who do they turn to for information about the product?

7. 📈 Investment level - How much of their success depends on the product?

👤 Sample Stakeholder Personas for an Existing Product

Let's look at two example personas you might create when taking over an existing product:

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🌟 The Veteran Sales Executive

Name: Legacy Larry
Role: Senior Sales Executive, Key Accounts
Relationship Tenure: 4+ years selling the product

Key Pain Points:

• 🤞 Feature promises made to key clients haven't been delivered

• 🥇 Competing product has introduced capabilities that were on "our roadmap"

• ❓ Uncertainty about new leadership direction makes client conversations difficult

Informal Workarounds:

• 🎭 Has created custom demo environments that highlight strengths and hide weaknesses

• 📱 Uses personal relationships with engineering to get urgent client issues addressed

• 📓 Has developed a set of "off-roadmap" promises that have worked in the past

Fears About Change:

• 💰 New pricing models might disrupt renewal conversations

• 🎯 Feature prioritization might shift away from his key accounts' needs

• 💬 New messaging might contradict claims made to existing clients

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🛠️ The Experienced Support Manager

Name: Troubleshooting Tina
Role: Customer Support Team Lead
Relationship Tenure: 3 years managing support tickets

Key Pain Points:

• 🔄 Recurring issues that engineering has deprioritized fixing

• 📚 Lack of documentation for complex edge cases

• 🚨 No clear escalation path for strategic customers

Institutional Knowledge:

• ⚠️ Knows which error messages indicate serious problems vs. false alarms

• 🧩 Has identified patterns in customer confusion points during onboarding

• 👑 Understands which customers have influence with executives

Informal Workarounds:

• 📔 Maintains an unofficial knowledge base of solutions for common problems

• 🤙 Has developed relationships with specific engineers who help with urgent fixes

• 📜 Created custom troubleshooting scripts that aren't in official documentation

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📆 Your First 90 Days: Implementing a Stakeholder Discovery Process

As a new product manager taking over an existing product:

1. 🗣️ Schedule stakeholder interviews - Begin with internal teams before expanding to customers

2. 🔎 Review existing artifacts - Analyse support tickets, sales enablement materials, and internal documentation

3. 👀 Observe real interactions - Sit in on sales calls, support sessions, and implementation meetings

4. 📊 Map influence networks - Identify formal and informal decision-makers

5. 🗺️ Create stakeholder journey maps - Document how different teams interact with the product throughout its lifecycle

6. 🔍 Identify pain point patterns - Look for recurring themes across different stakeholder groups

7. ✅ Validate your findings - Present your stakeholder personas back to the teams for verification

⚖️ Balancing Continuity and Change

One of the most challenging aspects of taking over an existing product is determining what to preserve versus what to change. Your stakeholder personas provide critical context for these decisions:

• 🛡️ Preserve - Workflows and features that multiple stakeholders rely on

• 🔄 Evolve - Areas with workarounds that indicate unmet needs

• 🔄 Transform - Elements that create consistent pain across stakeholder groups

• 📢 Communicate - Provide clear rationales for changes that impact established patterns

🧠 Leveraging Institutional Knowledge

Your stakeholder personas reveal valuable institutional knowledge that isn't documented anywhere else. This "tribal knowledge" often includes:

• 📜 Historical context for seemingly odd product decisions

• 🧩 Undocumented customer needs that shaped feature development

• ⚠️ Failed approaches that shouldn't be repeated

• 🏛️ Internal politics and priorities that influence product success

By capturing this knowledge in your stakeholder personas, you prevent critical insights from being lost during your transition.

🗺️ Creating Your Stakeholder-Informed Roadmap

With a deep understanding of your stakeholder ecosystem, you can develop a transition roadmap that:

1. 🎯 Addresses critical pain points to build credibility and trust

2. 💪 Leverages existing strengths identified by stakeholders

3. 📢 Communicates clearly about changes to established workflows

4. 🧠 Acknowledges and incorporates institutional knowledge

5. ⚖️ Balances continuity with innovation to manage change resistance

🎭 Conclusion: From Outsider to Ecosystem Orchestrator

Taking over an existing product is fundamentally different from launching something new. Success depends not just on your product vision, but on your ability to understand and work within the existing stakeholder ecosystem.

By taking the time to develop comprehensive stakeholder personas before making significant changes, you transform from an outsider introducing disruption to an orchestra conductor harmonizing the various elements already in play.

The product manager who acknowledges and leverages the complete stakeholder ecosystem doesn't just change a product—they evolve it in a way that brings everyone along on the journey.

What hidden stakeholder perspectives might you uncover in your product transition? The answer might be the key to your success.

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