First, I determined which teams within the organization regularly and consistently work directly with the users I was trying to personify. I pinpointed about 15-20 subject matter experts that work with the subjects in various capacities. Some of the groups I engaged with were state and global representatives, operations, improvement, volunteer, and client services.
Over the last few years, I have learned that it's much easier to receive feedback from cross-functional groups when reacting to a visual. In this case, I had a working knowledge of the organization. So, I broke the cardinal rule in personas and made-up examples.
Next, I engaged with each expert and communicated with them via the preferred method they specified. We reviewed the content from each example, and then I asked each person to reflect, then provide feedback and changes within an agreed-upon timeframe.
I received feedback from all of the experts, I updated the persona to represent all of the input. I used my judgment and consulted other members of the product team to reconcile conflicting data.
Once I completed my revised personas, I shared the deliverables via email with the group. I chose to follow up via email because it provided flexibility, transparency of group feedback and documentation, plus it allowed all the experts to review at their leisure. All parties were able to confirm the final version before completion.
My recommendation is to further validate this project in the future by collaborating with groups such as marketing and the data analytics team by creating a user survey based on each persona's content to obtain and verify the user's feedback directly.
