(Illustrated above) A financial trader receives training about new trading application functionalities from a trusted vendor. He learns everything he can about changes in the current version so that he can effectively train his colleagues about the most relevant new features for their own ways of working.

A scientist starts a new position at a large clinical research lab. As she arrives at the new lab, she promotes the purchase and use of an analysis application that she found to be immensely valuable in her earlier efforts, ensuring that everyone understands its value and workings.

An architect contacts a product vendor to ask how their building modeling application could be integrated with another computing tool that her studio is considering using. She is provided with a direct contact in the product’s development team that can answer her detailed questions, and as a result of those personal conversations, she becomes an outspoken advocate of the modeling application within her firm and community.

Who might be excited about the possibilities of applying your team’s eventual product to real world work?Which established roles in targeted organizations typically promote the adoption and use of new or updated computing tools?

Which existing users of your firm’s products could be recognized as system champions?

Who is advancing the use of similar applications in your targeted markets, effectively “translating” them into local situations?

What processes might your team envision to ensure that your firm identifies and promotes relationships with emerging system champions?

What larger design and technology trends could influence your ideas about connecting with and supporting these potentially influential individuals?

What larger market trends could impact your team’s ideas about connecting with those users who eventually champion your product?

How might system champions, in practice, actually advance the adoption and effective use of your computing tool? What background and instruction might they be called upon to provide? What types of problems could they face?

What functionality concepts might your team envision to provide targeted communication channels between system champions and supporting staff within your firm?

What additional specialized information about your product might system champions value?

What targeted services could your firm provide to support identified champions? What functionality concepts might your team sketch to enable and direct these service ideas?

How might system champions eventually represent their organizations, communities of practice, or larger professional fields in ongoing conversations with your team about the evolution of your product?

What implications could support for championing individuals have on the brand of your sketched computing tool? On your marketing methods and messaging?

Do you have enough information to usefully answer these and other envisioning questions? What additional research, problem space models, and design concepting could valuably inform your team’s application envisioning efforts?