Defining Stakeholders

On October 11th, 2023, I was able to attend an Amazon Working Backwards event in Raleigh, North Carolina. The “Working Backwards” process at Amazon starts by deeply understanding the customer, their context, and their needs. During the event, participants created persona posters for the stakeholders of the city in order to better define and understand their point of view on specific issues. The participants were able to collaborate and be creative in how they created their stakeholders persona, being extremely specific.

Customer-centric approaches like Amazon’s “working backwards” method start with an in-depth understanding of the customer or stakeholder, their context, and their specific needs—a process deeply rooted in the empathy as it requires designers to step into the user’s shoes and perceive the world from their viewpoint. Furthermore, personas serve as constant reminder that design-thinking is about addressing the real needs and emotions of real individuals, aligning with the define stage.