# PERSONA_DOSSIER ## 1. Research Objective, Scope, and Definition of Done **Outcome.** This research is meant to inform the Q3 roadmap review's prioritization of which finance-team pain points and buying-committee objections the next development and packaging cycle should address, for expense management software sold to finance teams at 50–500 person companies. Product and roadmap leadership cannot rank Q3 investments with confidence without a grounded picture of who is on the buying committee, what actually triggers a switch away from manual processes, and why deals are won or lost; sales enablement and product marketing are similarly blocked from building message-market-fit content. **Stakeholders.** Users of the personas: product/roadmap leadership (Q3 review), sales enablement, product marketing. Approves fieldwork spend and recruitment: Research/Product lead. Signs off on internal publication of personas as decision-grade: Research/Product lead jointly with Product Marketing lead. **Requirements table** | ID | Requirement | Source | |---|---|---| | R1 | Deliver decision-ready personas within 6 weeks, ahead of the Q3 roadmap review | Supplied (Timeline) | | R2 | Operate within a limited-fieldwork budget — no large-scale survey or expanded interview rounds unless a small pilot justifies further spend | Supplied (Research budget) | | R3 | Mine the existing CRM export of 400 closed-won/closed-lost deals before commissioning new research | Supplied (context) | | R4 | Reuse the 15 existing customer interview transcripts already collected | Supplied (context) | | R5 | No direct contact with churned (post-cancellation) customers, per legal's post-cancellation communication policy | Supplied (hard constraint) | | R6 | Confirm actual buying-committee role coverage from CRM/transcripts before finalizing persona role assignments | Derived gap | | R7 | Any decision-critical claim used to justify Q3 roadmap prioritization must be validated via real interview, survey, or existing-data mining — not internal guesswork | Derived gap (Convention/Principle G) | **Explicit exclusions.** This dossier is not validated for pricing decisions (no pricing-specific data was supplied). It is not validated for churn or win-back messaging — the hard constraint against contacting churned customers means no primary data on why customers who already left actually left; only pre-sale closed-lost reasons are in scope. It does not authorize claims about companies outside the 50–500 employee band (no enterprise >500 or SMB <50 segment is covered). **Solution shape.** Desk-research-derived: initial persona drafts, buying-committee role distribution, closed-lost reason patterns, drawn from CRM export and existing transcripts — owned by the Research lead. Primary-fieldwork-derived: resolution of decision-critical validations (primary switching trigger, integration-related loss reason, motivation by role, budget authority, implementation blocker) via small-pilot interviews with active (non-churned) customers and a lightweight survey to closed-lost (never-churned) prospects — owned by the Research lead with Customer Success and Sales Ops support. **Completion criteria** - CRM export of 400 deals mined for buying-committee contact roles and closed-lost reason codes, with counts reported by subgroup. - All 15 existing transcripts reviewed and mapped to Section 3 assumption IDs, with coverage gaps flagged. - Small-pilot interviews and closed-lost survey (Section 9) executed and read for at least the three highest-risk assumptions, each reported Pass/Fail/Inconclusive. - Every decision-critical `<VALIDATE>` item in Section 7 has a reported Status until resolved, even if still unresolved at handoff. - Every row in the Section 12 approval register has a Status other than "not yet assessed." - Sign-off obtained from the Research/Product lead and Product Marketing lead before any persona is used in the Q3 roadmap review as decision-grade input. A set of persona slides alone is **not** completion — see Section 13. ## 2. Researcher Instructions ``` Conduct this research against real customers and real data, not a simulation of them. Review existing CRM, support, and sales-call records first. Preserve and reuse any prior research that already covers this segment instead of re-deriving it. Resolve every <VALIDATE> item through real interviews, real survey responses, or current published sources — not internal guesswork. Produce an actual dossier grounded in named sources; do not stop at a plausible-sounding sketch. Run the interview or survey pilot defined in Section 9, read the actual responses, and revise the draft personas before they are used for a decision. Stop reusing an unchanged persona once contradicting evidence appears; report a concrete blocker when progress needs recruitment budget, legal/privacy sign-off, or access you don't have authority to obtain. Do not leave required traits unverified in a "final" dossier, invented customer quotes, fabricated survey counts, or composite claims presented as coming from a single source. Continue safe, low-cost desk research while a decision-critical validation is pending. Recruit participants or publish personas only within approved authority. Report progress using actual interview/survey counts, and clearly separate desk-research-derived, pilot-validated, and fully validated traits. Operational defaults (interview guide structure, note-taking template, incentive amount for a small pilot) may be chosen and documented autonomously. Do not autonomously invent participant compensation beyond an approved pilot budget, or claim consent processes that were not run. ``` In particular: do not assume that manual reconciliation and close-related rework is the primary trigger that moves a finance team to evaluate this category (`<VALIDATE: primary-switching-trigger>`) — this is the single claim the Q3 prioritization most depends on, and it must come from the CRM mining, transcript review, and small-pilot interviews defined below, not from category familiarity. ## 3. Data Source and Assumption Ledger **Identity and firmographic claims** | ID | Claim | Source | Confidence | Consequence if wrong | |---|---|---|---|---| | A1 | Target companies are 50–500 employee organizations evaluating or using expense management software | Supplied | High | Segment definitions and recruitment targeting misaligned; whole dossier scoped to the wrong company-size band | | A2 | The buying committee typically spans three roles: a Controller/Finance-Ops champion, a VP Finance/CFO economic buyer, and an AP/expense-processing analyst end user | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: buying-committee-roles>` | Medium | Persona set could omit or misweight an actual decision-maker (e.g., understating IT/procurement involvement), misdirecting personas and interview guides | | A3 | The 15 existing transcripts already cover some fraction of these roles and can be mined before new interviews are commissioned | Supplied (existing asset) | High (exist) / Medium (coverage) | Redundant fieldwork spend re-deriving what's already known, or false confidence a role is covered when it isn't | | A4 | Companies in this size band run a lean finance team (1–3 staff handling both AP and controllership) rather than a dedicated expense-ops department | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: team-structure-by-size>` | Medium | Persona descriptions of role scope and daily workload would misstate responsibilities, weakening message-market fit | | A11 | Hard constraint: churned (cancelled) customers cannot be contacted directly for research purposes, per legal's post-cancellation communication policy | Supplied (hard constraint) | High | Legal/compliance exposure if violated; excludes churn-specific primary research as an in-scope method | **Behavioral and motivational claims** | ID | Claim | Source | Confidence | Consequence if wrong | |---|---|---|---|---| | A5 | The primary trigger for switching from manual/spreadsheet-based expense tracking is time lost to manual reconciliation and month-end close delays | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: primary-switching-trigger>` | Low–Medium | Roadmap prioritization and messaging built around the wrong pain point; could misdirect a full quarter of product investment | | A6 | A recurring closed-lost reason is inadequate integration with the buyer's existing accounting system (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct) | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: integration-loss-reason>` | Low | Could over-invest in integration work that wasn't actually deciding, or under-invest in one that was | | A7 | Champion-level buyers are motivated primarily by reducing personal manual workload, while economic buyers are motivated primarily by spend visibility and policy compliance | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: motivation-by-role>` | Medium | Segment-specific messaging in Section 4 would target the wrong motivator for each buying-committee role | **Buying-process claims** | ID | Claim | Source | Confidence | Consequence if wrong | |---|---|---|---|---| | A8 | The Controller/Finance-Ops champion typically initiates evaluation, with the CFO/VP Finance approving budget and IT/procurement reviewing security/integration late in the cycle | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: buying-process-sequence>` (routine) | Medium | Sales enablement content sequenced for the wrong stakeholder order | | A9 | Budget authority for a purchase in this size band sits with the CFO/VP Finance rather than being fully delegated to the Controller | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: budget-authority>` | Medium | Persona and campaign targeting could misdirect pricing/ROI content at a role without sign-off authority | | A10 | A primary closed-lost blocker is perceived implementation/migration burden (data migration from spreadsheets or a legacy tool) | Unverified — `<VALIDATE: implementation-blocker>` | Low | Could misallocate roadmap effort toward onboarding/migration tooling that wasn't actually the deciding objection | The three assumptions whose failure would most invalidate these personas are **A5** (primary switching trigger — the core value-proposition claim the whole roadmap review leans on), **A6** (integration-related loss reason — directly shapes whether integration work is prioritized), and **A7** (motivation by role — determines whether champion- and economic-buyer-facing content is aimed correctly). Section 9's fieldwork tests these three first. ## 4. Persona Profile Briefs ``` PERSONA BRIEF — Finance Ops Champion (Controller / Accounting Manager) Segment: Mid-market (50–500 employees) finance team; buying-committee champion role. Primary goal: Reduce time lost to manual expense reconciliation and close-related rework (A5). Primary obstacle: Existing spreadsheet/legacy-tool workflow requires manual re-entry and error-checking across systems, within a lean team that also owns controllership duties (A5, A4). Representative language pattern (not a verbatim quote): describes closing the books each month as a scramble to chase down missing receipts and reconcile mismatched entries. Least-certain assumption: Whether manual-reconciliation time is genuinely the primary switching trigger, versus a secondary complaint sitting behind a different driver — <VALIDATE: primary-switching-trigger>. Internal-only sourcing notes: - Team structure/workload → A4 - Switching trigger → A5 - Buying-committee role → A2 Evidence rule: This brief is a draft for review, not a decision-grade persona. Use in a roadmap or campaign decision is gated by the Section 12 approval register, not by the completion of this brief. ``` ``` PERSONA BRIEF — Economic Buyer (VP Finance / CFO) Segment: Mid-market (50–500 employees) finance team; buying-committee economic-buyer role. Primary goal: Spend visibility and policy compliance, with a defensible ROI case to justify the purchase to leadership (A7). Primary obstacle: Needs confidence that budget approval is justified — weighing this against a perceived implementation/migration burden and uncertainty about who else must sign off (A9, A10). Representative language pattern (not a verbatim quote): frames the decision in terms of whether the tool will hold up under audit and whether the switching cost is worth it this fiscal year. Least-certain assumption: Whether budget authority genuinely sits solely with this role versus being shared with or delegated to the Controller — <VALIDATE: budget-authority>. Internal-only sourcing notes: - Motivation → A7 - Budget authority → A9 - Buying-committee role → A2 Evidence rule: This brief is a draft for review, not a decision-grade persona. Use in a roadmap or campaign decision is gated by the Section 12 approval register, not by the completion of this brief. ``` ``` PERSONA BRIEF — AP / Expense Processing Analyst (Power User) Segment: Mid-market (50–500 employees) finance team; buying-committee end-user role. Primary goal: Reduce the day-to-day manual workload of processing and approving expense line items (A5, A4). Primary obstacle: Tool usability and integration with the existing accounting system create extra manual work when data doesn't sync cleanly (A6). Representative language pattern (not a verbatim quote): describes re-keying the same line item into two systems when the sync doesn't work as expected. Least-certain assumption: Whether integration friction is a top-of-mind pain for this role specifically, or mainly surfaces for IT/procurement later in the cycle — <VALIDATE: integration-loss-reason>. Internal-only sourcing notes: - Integration/loss reason → A6 - Team structure/workload → A4 - Buying-committee role → A2 Evidence rule: This brief is a draft for review, not a decision-grade persona. Use in a roadmap or campaign decision is gated by the Section 12 approval register, not by the completion of this brief. ``` ## 5. Segment and Recruitment Contracts | Field | CRM Deal Record Mining | Existing Transcript Review | Small-Pilot Active-Customer Interviews | Closed-Lost Prospect Survey | |---|---|---|---|---| | Name | Desk research: CRM export mining | Desk research: transcript review | Primary research: small-pilot interviews | Primary research: lightweight survey | | Target population | All 400 closed-won/closed-lost deal records | All 15 existing interview transcripts | Active (non-churned) current customers across the three buying-committee roles | Closed-lost prospects who never became customers (not covered by the churned-customer constraint) | | Hypothesis | Role composition and loss-reason distribution match A2, A6, A8 | Existing coverage of switching triggers and motivations (A5, A7) | A5, A6, A7 hold up directly under questioning by role | A6, A9, A10 (loss reasons, budget authority, implementation blocker) hold up | | Primary signal sought | Buying-committee contact titles; closed-lost reason codes | Coded pain points and motivations by role | Qualitative confirmation/contradiction of switching trigger and role motivation | Top-reason-didn't-close single-select plus open text | | Recruitment/effort estimate and source | No recruitment; ~3–5 analyst days against existing CRM export | No recruitment; already collected | Recruit via Customer Success outreach; ~2–3 weeks lead time; small incentive (~$50–75/participant) | Email a subset of closed-lost prospect contacts; ~2–3 weeks; minimal or no incentive | | Minimum sample before a claim counts as validated | ≥20 records per role subgroup coded | All 15 reviewed; flag any role subgroup with <3 transcripts as under-covered | ≥2 completed interviews per role (6 total) for a pilot pass | ≥15–20 completed responses | | Owner | Research lead / RevOps analyst | Research lead | Research lead + Customer Success liaison | Research lead + Sales Ops | **Not in scope for this budget tier.** Direct contact with churned/cancelled customers is excluded entirely — this is a hard constraint (legal's post-cancellation policy), not a cost/method tradeoff. Expanded-fieldwork or large-N quantitative survey work (100+ respondents) is excluded from this limited-fieldwork phase; it would require moving to a funded-fieldwork budget tier in a later cycle. **Internal vs. external claim separation.** Only claims that reach full-validation (all Section 9 checks passed at their stated level and all relevant Section 12 actions approved) may ever be shared outside the immediate research team — for example, in a customer-facing case study or public marketing claim. Desk-research-derived and pilot-level findings remain internal working notes for the Q3 roadmap discussion only, and must be labeled as not decision-grade until Section 12 sign-off. ## 6. Research Architecture and Interview Guide Map | Method | Time-to-first-insight | Sample reliability | Cost | Fit to stated market | |---|---|---|---|---| | Existing-data mining (CRM + transcripts) | ~1 week | High for what was already captured; limited to what past deals/interviews recorded | Low (analyst time only) | Strong — 400 deal records and 15 transcripts are already on hand | | Small-pilot structured interviews (active customers) | ~3–4 weeks incl. recruitment | Low–Medium (6–10 interviews; directional only) | Medium (incentives + coordination) | Strong — the only method that tests A5/A7 directly with the people it concerns | | Lightweight unmoderated survey (closed-lost prospects) | ~2–3 weeks | Medium if 15–20+ responses collected | Low–Medium | Strong — targets A6/A9/A10 loss-reason questions without touching churned customers | | Rejected: expanded quantitative survey (100+ respondents) | N/A | Would be high if run | High | Exceeds limited-fieldwork budget and 6-week timeline; reserved for a future funded-fieldwork phase | | Rejected: on-site ethnographic observation | N/A | Would be high if run | High | Too costly/time-intensive for a 6-week limited-fieldwork budget | | Excluded (hard constraint, not a tradeoff): direct outreach to churned/cancelled customers | N/A | N/A | N/A | Prohibited by legal's post-cancellation communication policy | **Selected:** existing-data mining + small-pilot structured interviews + lightweight survey to closed-lost (non-churned) prospects. This combination satisfies R2 and R7 (Section 1) by grounding drafts in already-available data before spending limited-fieldwork budget only on the highest-risk decision-critical claims. **Interview/survey guide map** | Question block | Assumption ID tested | Owner | |---|---|---| | Day-to-day workflow and time allocation (Controller/Analyst) | A4, A5 | Research lead | | Trigger for evaluating a new tool | A5 | Research lead | | Integration/accounting-system fit | A6 | Research lead | | Who approves budget / who else is involved | A8, A9 | Research lead | | What almost stopped the deal / objections raised | A6, A10 | Research lead | | CFO/VP-specific: what visibility/compliance metrics matter | A7 | Research lead | | Survey (closed-lost prospects): top reason didn't close + open text | A6, A9, A10 | Sales Ops + Research lead | Not used at this budget tier: expanded quantitative survey, on-site/ethnographic observation, and any direct contact with churned customers. No segment or claim beyond those already listed in Section 5 is in scope — in particular, no enterprise (>500 employee) or SMB (<50 employee) segment, and no churned-customer voice. ## 7. Validation and Primary-Research Requirements **`<VALIDATE: buying-committee-roles>`** — What must be established: whether the buying committee reliably includes Controller/Finance-Ops, CFO/VP Finance, and an AP/expense analyst, or whether a role (e.g., IT/procurement) is missing. How to establish: check current published industry/market data on typical finance-software buying committees at this company size (routine). Dependent tasks: Section 4 persona role assignment; Section 5 recruitment segment definitions. **`<VALIDATE: team-structure-by-size>`** — What must be established: whether 50–500 employee finance teams typically run lean (1–3 staff, combined AP/controllership) rather than a dedicated expense-ops function. How to establish: check current published mid-market finance organization benchmarking data (routine). Dependent tasks: Section 4 workload descriptions for P1 and P3. **`<VALIDATE: primary-switching-trigger>`** (decision-critical) — What must be established: whether manual reconciliation/close-time pain is genuinely the top trigger for evaluating this category, versus a different driver. How to establish: run real interviews (small-pilot active-customer interviews, Section 9). Dependent tasks: Section 4 P1 goal/obstacle; Section 12 ACT-4 (internal publication as decision-grade). Status until resolved: stands in on the small-pilot interview batch defined in Section 9; must not be used for a roadmap decision until resolved at full-validation. **`<VALIDATE: integration-loss-reason>`** (decision-critical) — What must be established: whether inadequate accounting-system integration is a recurring, material closed-lost reason. How to establish: run a real survey (closed-lost prospect survey, Section 9). Dependent tasks: Section 4 P3 obstacle; Section 12 ACT-4. Status until resolved: stands in on the closed-lost survey pilot batch defined in Section 9; not usable for a roadmap decision until resolved. **`<VALIDATE: motivation-by-role>`** (decision-critical) — What must be established: whether champions and economic buyers are actually motivated by different, role-specific drivers as assumed. How to establish: run real interviews (small-pilot interviews, segmented by role, Section 9). Dependent tasks: Section 4 P1 and P2 goals; Section 12 ACT-4. Status until resolved: stands in on the same small-pilot interview batch as the switching-trigger item; not usable for a roadmap decision until resolved. **`<VALIDATE: buying-process-sequence>`** — What must be established: whether the champion-initiates → economic-buyer-approves → IT-reviews sequence actually holds. How to establish: check current published industry/market data on typical B2B SaaS finance buying processes at this company size (routine), cross-checked against CRM deal-stage contact activity. Dependent tasks: Section 6 interview guide sequencing. **`<VALIDATE: budget-authority>`** (decision-critical) — What must be established: whether budget sign-off sits solely with the CFO/VP Finance or is shared/delegated. How to establish: run real interviews (CFO/VP-Finance-specific block in the small-pilot interviews, Section 9). Dependent tasks: Section 4 P2 obstacle; Section 12 ACT-4. Status until resolved: stands in on CFO/VP-Finance interviews within the same small-pilot batch; not usable for a roadmap decision until resolved. **`<VALIDATE: implementation-blocker>`** (decision-critical) — What must be established: whether perceived implementation/migration burden is a material closed-lost reason. How to establish: run a real survey (closed-lost prospect survey, Section 9). Dependent tasks: Section 4 P2 obstacle; Section 12 ACT-4. Status until resolved: stands in on the closed-lost survey pilot batch; not usable for a roadmap decision until resolved. Before any of the decision-critical items above is escalated to new fieldwork spend, the CRM export and existing transcripts must be checked first — mining what's already available is lower-cost than commissioning interviews, and any behavioral claim used in a persona is either sourced to this existing data, a cited current publication, or an explicit `<VALIDATE>` tag; none is invented for plausibility. ## 8. Synthesis Sequence and Requirement Traceability 1. Mine the CRM export (400 deals) for buying-committee contact titles and closed-lost reason codes. [A2, A6, A8] — no dependency. 2. Review and code the 15 existing transcripts against the Section 3 assumption IDs. [A5, A7, A4] — no dependency. 3. Run a deterministic privacy/compliance check confirming no churned-customer contact information or protected data is used in Tasks 1–2 or any planned recruitment list. [A11 / R5] — depends on Tasks 1, 2. 4. Draft the Section 4 persona briefs from Tasks 1–2 findings. — depends on Tasks 1–3. 5. Draft the interview guide and closed-lost survey instrument (Section 6 guide map). — depends on Task 4. 6. Recruit and run small-pilot interviews with active (non-churned) customers. [A5, A7, A9] — depends on Task 5 and Section 12 ACT-1/ACT-2 approval. 7. Field the lightweight survey to closed-lost (non-churned) prospects. [A6, A10] — depends on Task 5 and Section 12 ACT-3 approval. 8. Read pilot interview and survey responses; update Section 3 confidence ratings and Section 9 Pass/Fail results. — depends on Tasks 6, 7. 9. Revise persona briefs where pilot data contradicts drafts. — depends on Task 8. 10. Report blockers on every unresolved decision-critical Section 7 item before any persona is marked decision-grade. — depends on Task 9. **Traceability table** | Requirement/Assumption | Persona/Trait | Owner | Acceptance Check | |---|---|---|---| | R3 / A2, A6, A8 | Buying-committee roles; loss-reason base rates | Research lead | CRM mining output (Task 1) reviewed, subgroup counts ≥20 | | R4 / A5, A7 | Switching trigger; role motivation (initial draft) | Research lead | Transcript coding (Task 2) complete for all 15, gaps flagged | | R5 / A11 | Hard constraint compliance | Research lead | Privacy check (Task 3) signed off before any recruitment | | A5, A7, A9 | P1 goal/obstacle; P2 goal/obstacle | Research lead + CS liaison | Small-pilot interviews (Task 6) read, Section 9 pass condition checked | | A6, A10 | P3 obstacle; P2 obstacle | Research lead + Sales Ops | Closed-lost survey (Task 7) read, Section 9 pass condition checked | | A1, A4 | Segment definition; workload description | Research lead | Confirmed against CRM company-size field and published benchmarking data | | R1, R2 | Overall timeline and budget adherence | Research lead | Tasks 1–10 tracked against the 6-week window and limited-fieldwork spend cap | ## 9. Interview and Survey Pilot Readiness Checks All sample sizes and incentive spend below are small-scale test allocations, not a statistically representative sample of the 50–500 employee finance-team population. Any quote or statistic reported from them is real pilot data only once actually collected — none has been collected as of this dossier's issuance. | Assumption/Req | Test level | Sample/incentive | Expected result | Pass condition | Prerequisites | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | R3 (CRM mining) | desk-review | Full 400-record export | Role and loss-reason distribution tables | ≥20 records per role subgroup coded | CRM export access confirmed | | R4 (transcript review) | desk-review | 15 transcripts | Pain points/motivations coded to A5/A7 | All 15 reviewed; coverage gaps flagged | Transcript access confirmed | | A5 primary-switching-trigger | small-pilot | 6–10 active-customer interviews, ~$50–75 incentive each | Majority cite reconciliation/close-time pain as top trigger | ≥4 of 6 completed interviews cite it as top trigger | Tasks 1–3 complete; Section 12 ACT-1 approved | | A5 — no-response variant | small-pilot | Same batch | Fewer than 4 completed interviews | Treated as inconclusive, not a pass | Same as above | | A5 — contradicting-response variant | small-pilot | Same batch | Majority cite a different top trigger (e.g., approval-workflow speed) | Flags P1 goal/obstacle for revision; original claim is not silently kept | Same as above | | A7 motivation-by-role | small-pilot | Same 6–10 interviews, segmented by role | Distinct motivator pattern visible by role | Pattern holds in ≥4 of 6 interviews | Same as A5 | | A9 budget-authority | small-pilot | CFO/VP-Finance interview block within same batch (target 2–3) | Consistent answer on who approves budget | Consistent across all CFO/VP-Finance interviews completed | ≥2 CFO/VP-Finance interviews completed | | A6 integration-loss-reason | small-pilot | 15–20 closed-lost survey responses | Integration cited as a top-2 reason | Cited by ≥25% of respondents | Survey fielded; Section 12 ACT-3 approved; non-churned contact list only | | A10 implementation-blocker | small-pilot | Same survey batch | Implementation burden cited as a reason | Cited by ≥20% of respondents | Same as A6 | | Privacy review | desk-review | N/A | No churned-customer PII in any mining or recruitment list | Compliance sign-off obtained before recruitment begins | Task 3 complete | | Fallback plan | small-pilot | N/A | Recruitment underperforms (< 4 completed interviews in 3 weeks) | Escalate within the same non-churned population or extend timeline; document as a blocker, not a lowered bar | Task 6 underway | | All decision-critical items (A5, A6, A7, A9, A10) | full-validation | N/A at this budget tier | N/A | **NOT RUN until Section 12 approvals granted** and a future funded-fieldwork phase is commissioned | Small-pilot results reviewed | A small-pilot PASS proves only that the interview guide and hypothesis are workable and worth carrying forward — it does not prove the trait generalizes across the full 50–500 employee finance-team population. Only full-validation data, collected at expanded-fieldwork scale, proves generalization; the two are never presented interchangeably in this dossier or its handoff. ## 10. Bias, Privacy, and Compliance Boundaries - **[HIGH / UNRESOLVED]** Publishing any persona as decision-grade while A5, A6, A7, A9, or A10 remain unresolved risks misdirecting Q3 roadmap investment; the no-decision-use rule (Section 12 ACT-4 status) applies until resolved. - **[MEDIUM]** Sampling bias: recruiting pilot interviews via Customer Success may over-represent currently satisfied, engaged active customers and under-represent those who nearly churned or had a rocky onboarding. Mitigation: cross-check pilot interview findings against the closed-lost survey (an independent population) before treating any trigger as confirmed. - **[MEDIUM]** Sampling bias: closed-lost survey responses may over-represent prospects still willing to engage post-loss, under-representing silent losses. Mitigation: report response rate alongside any finding, and treat the pattern as directional only until full-validation. - **[HIGH / HARD CONSTRAINT]** No direct contact with churned (post-cancellation) customers under any pilot or fieldwork task; every recruitment list must be filtered to exclude cancelled accounts before outreach begins. - **[HIGH]** Personal data boundary: interview and survey responses may be quoted internally only with respondent company and role anonymized; no real name, company name, or directly identifying quote appears in a published persona without documented consent. - **[MEDIUM]** Protected-characteristic boundary: no persona trait is based on a protected characteristic; if a data point correlates with one, it is excluded from the persona narrative. - **[MEDIUM]** Contradicting-interview handling: any response that contradicts a drafted persona trait is logged in Sections 3/9, not discarded as an outlier, and triggers the revision task (Section 8, Task 9). - **[LOW–MEDIUM]** Vulnerable/regulated population check: finance professionals at 50–500 employee companies are not a vulnerable or regulated population requiring extra review beyond standard business-research consent and anonymization practices. The bias risk that stays genuinely unassessable until Section 7's decision-critical items resolve is whether the small, non-random pilot sample (6–10 interviews, 15–20 survey responses) actually represents the full 50–500 employee finance-team population — this can only be addressed by expanded-fieldwork or full-validation data, not by this dossier's limited-fieldwork phase, and carries forward into Section 13 as a residual limitation. ## 11. Fieldwork, Verification, and Correction Plan **Runnable now:** CRM mining, transcript review, interview-guide and survey drafting, and internal privacy/compliance check (Section 8, Tasks 1–3, 5) — no approval blocker beyond standard existing data-access permissions. **Approved pilot fieldwork execution:** recruiting active-customer interviews and fielding the closed-lost survey (Tasks 6–7) are blocked on the corresponding Section 12 action rows moving from their current status to approved. **Expanded-fieldwork checks:** before any persona is marked decision-grade, the actual pilot sample size achieved is reviewed against each Section 9 pass condition; an underpowered result is escalated, not rounded up to a pass. **Full validation (AND-conditions — all required):** - Every Section 9 check has reached its stated small-pilot pass condition. - Every relevant Section 12 action is marked approved. - Every decision-critical Section 7 item (A5, A6, A7, A9, A10) is resolved from real pilot or expanded-fieldwork data, not merely pilot-stubbed. **Bounded post-publication verification:** within the first 30 days of Q3 roadmap use, run one concrete, low-cost check — for example, confirming with a sales or Customer Success team member that the published primary-switching-trigger claim actually surfaced in a real, current customer conversation — and separately verify that no excluded segment (enterprise >500 employees, SMB <50 employees, churned-customer voice) was accidentally folded into the final roadmap deck. **Correction:** before treating an earlier persona version as retracted, confirm the current published state of the document; correcting the document does not undo a roadmap decision already made on an earlier version. Containment means flagging the correction to known users (product/roadmap leadership, sales enablement) and updating the file with a visible change note, not silently editing it. ## 12. Recruitment and Publication Approval Register | Action ID | Purpose | Segment/Sample/Spend | Expected Effect | Trigger Condition | Status | Approved by / Date | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | ACT-1 | Recruit 6–10 active (non-churned) customers for small-pilot interviews | Active customers, 50–500 employee segment; ~$50–75 incentive/participant (~$500–750 total) | Enables pilot-level resolution of A5, A7, and A9 (CFO/VP subset) | Requires Task 1 (CRM contact mining) and Task 3 (privacy check) complete | blocked on prior action (Tasks 1, 3) | ____ / ____ | | ACT-2 | Pay small-pilot incentives to interview participants | ~$500–750 total spend | Enables completed interviews | Requires ACT-1 approval and scheduled interviews | blocked on ACT-1 | ____ / ____ | | ACT-3 | Field lightweight survey to closed-lost (non-churned) prospects | 15–20 target responses; minimal/no incentive | Enables pilot-level resolution of A6, A10 | Requires Task 1 to identify an eligible (non-churned, closed-lost) contact list | blocked on prior action (Task 1) | ____ / ____ | | ACT-4 | Publish personas internally as decision-grade for the Q3 roadmap review | Internal distribution to product/roadmap leadership | Enables roadmap prioritization decisions | Requires all decision-critical Section 7 items resolved and relevant Section 9 checks passed | BLOCKED BY VALIDATION (`primary-switching-trigger`, `integration-loss-reason`, `motivation-by-role`, `budget-authority`, `implementation-blocker`) | ____ / ____ | | ACT-5 | Share any persona or finding externally (e.g., case study, public marketing claim) | External audience | Enables external use | Requires full validation per Section 11 AND-conditions | BLOCKED BY VALIDATION (all decision-critical items); out of scope for this limited-fieldwork phase | ____ / ____ | | ACT-6 | Commission expanded-fieldwork (larger-N survey or additional interview rounds) beyond this dossier's scope | Sample/spend TBD; requires a funded-fieldwork budget tier | Enables progression toward full validation | Requires a leadership decision to fund the next research cycle | READY FOR HUMAN REVIEW | ____ / ____ | Approving one action never implies approval of another. Listing the correction action in Section 11 does not mean it is to be executed now. ## 13. Completion Evidence and Handoff A final report on this research must contain: personas delivered mapped to their real interview/survey batch identifiers (not yet assigned — pending fieldwork execution); every Section 9 check itemized PASS/FAIL/NOT RUN/BLOCKED with one-line evidence for each; pilot-derived and fully validated traits reported separately, with the explicit rule that a pilot PASS is never presented as evidence of segment-wide prevalence; actual fieldwork spend to date and by whom approved; the status of every unresolved Section 7 item, by name; any residual limitation still true at handoff; and exact next steps to continue any outstanding validation or approval item. **Current status at issuance of this dossier (no fieldwork yet executed):** - Section 9 checks: CRM mining — NOT RUN; transcript review — NOT RUN; small-pilot interviews — NOT RUN; closed-lost survey — NOT RUN; privacy review — NOT RUN; all full-validation rows — NOT RUN. - Fieldwork spend to date: **NO SPEND COMMITTED**. - Section 7 item status: `buying-committee-roles` — NOT RUN; `team-structure-by-size` — NOT RUN; `primary-switching-trigger` — NOT RUN (decision-critical, blocks ACT-4); `integration-loss-reason` — NOT RUN (decision-critical, blocks ACT-4); `motivation-by-role` — NOT RUN (decision-critical, blocks ACT-4); `buying-process-sequence` — NOT RUN; `budget-authority` — NOT RUN (decision-critical, blocks ACT-4); `implementation-blocker` — NOT RUN (decision-critical, blocks ACT-4). - Residual limitations: no fieldwork executed yet; when run, sample sizes will remain small-pilot scale only (6–10 interviews, 15–20 survey responses); churned-customer voice is permanently excluded from this and any future cycle under the standing hard constraint. - Next steps: execute Section 8 Tasks 1–3 (CRM mining, transcript review, privacy check) in weeks 1–2; secure Section 12 approvals for ACT-1/ACT-2/ACT-3 by week 2; run pilot interviews and field the survey in weeks 3–4; read and code results in week 5; revise personas and report final Section 7/9/12 status in week 6, ahead of the Q3 roadmap review. Interview transcripts, survey counts, and approvals reported anywhere in this research are never fabricated. A polished persona slide alone is not evidence that the underlying research holds.