This is a roughly 100-minute facilitated, sticky-note workshop that traces a chain: from WHO matters, to WHAT you do for them, to WHERE it hurts. You move from personas to processes to pain points, and the output is a prioritized backlog of opportunities. The structure does the heavy lifting, so most of your job is keeping the room moving through it.

When to use this play#

Run it at the start of an engagement when you need to surface and prioritize where the real problems are, with the people who live in those problems. It works best with a cross-section of the organization in the room and a facilitator who stays neutral.

How to run it#

The workshop is three phases, each building on the last. Use a different sticky-note color for each layer so the board stays readable.

1. Persona identification (about 25 minutes). Personas are roles or types, not named individuals. Run a silent brainstorm, one persona per note, then post and cluster the notes. Dot-vote to find the ones that matter most, and capture the top three to five.

2. Process mapping (about 30 minutes). A process is a repeatable series of steps with a clear start and end. Only map processes that serve the priority personas; ignore the rest for now. Silent brainstorm again, post each process under the persona it serves, dot-vote, and capture the top five to seven.

3. Pain-point identification (about 30 minutes). A pain point is anything that slows you down, frustrates, costs money, or creates risk, stated specifically. "Communication is hard" is not a pain point; "approvals wait three days for a single sign-off" is. Brainstorm pains and attach each to the process it belongs to. Run a quick clarification round so everyone understands each note, then do a severity dot-vote using two colors, one for high severity and one for moderate.

Facilitation techniques#

These are the moves that keep the workshop honest and productive:

• Silent brainstorming before discussion. Writing first, talking second, prevents the loudest or most senior voice from anchoring the room.
• Color-coded notes. One color per layer so persona, process, and pain are visually distinct on the board.
• Dot voting with a fixed budget and no stacking. Give everyone the same number of dots and do not let them pile multiple dots on one note.
• Two-color severity voting. High versus moderate, so prioritization is visible at a glance.
• A parking lot. Park out-of-scope items somewhere visible so they are acknowledged without derailing the chain.
• The be-specific rule. Push every pain toward something concrete and, where possible, quantified.
• Output capture. Photograph the board, then transcribe the chain as Persona to Process to Top Pains. Each row becomes a candidate opportunity.

Common traps#

• Personas drifting into named people. Keep them as roles, or you end up designing around one person's quirks.
• Mapping processes for non-priority personas. It dilutes the board and the voting. Stay disciplined about which personas you serve.
• Vague pain points. Unspecific pains cannot be prioritized or acted on. Enforce the be-specific rule.
• Letting discussion start before the silent brainstorm. Once anchoring happens, you cannot un-anchor the room.

Signals it's working#

• The board reads as a clear chain from personas down to specific, severity-ranked pains.
• Quiet participants surface pains the loud ones never would have raised.
• The transcribed rows look like real opportunities, not platitudes.

How it ends#

It ends with a captured, prioritized list: the chain from persona to process to top pains, photographed and transcribed, with each row a candidate opportunity. That list is the raw material for whatever planning comes next, grounded in where it actually hurts.