Customer Empathy Study Groups

A Study Group is a structured, cross-functional roleplay session designed to reveal the "entropy" and friction that accumulate in a product. Instead of reviewing a demo or looking at a friction log, the team "embodies" the customer to experience the product’s failures firsthand.

Core Rules

1. You do not work at this company: You must abandon all internal knowledge of where buttons are, why certain docs are linked, or how the backend functions.
2. We are not here to solve problems: The session is for practicing empathy and experiencing friction. Do not suggest fixes, file bugs, or critique design during the roleplay. Record the pain; solve it later.

The Workflow

1. Assemble the Group

Gather 4 to 8 people from across the company (e.g., Support, Engineering, Sales, and Product). Diversity is critical; avoid having only the team that built the feature in the room.

2. Set the Persona and Outcome

Define a specific, motivating goal for a fictional company.

• Company Name: Give it a cutesy, arbitrary name (e.g., "Dolphin Aquarium Industries") to lower defensiveness.
• The Persona: Assign roles within the group (e.g., "Jenny is the CEO," "Tim is the Designer").
• The Goal: Define a specific outcome (e.g., "We need to sell tickets for the farmer's market using an in-person reader by 4:00 PM today").