5.1. Identifying Stakeholders and Scheduling Interviews5.2. Officially "Kicking Off" the Project5.3. Conducting Stakeholder Interviews5.3.1. Getting started5.3.2. Things to watch out for5.3.3. Topics applicable to most stakeholders5.3.3.1. What's your role with respect to this product?5.3.3.2. What did you do before this?5.3.3.3. What is this product or service supposed to be?5.3.3.4. Who is this product for?5.3.3.5. When is the version we're designing going to be released?5.3.3.6. What worries you about this project? What's the worst thing that could happen?5.3.3.7. What should this project accomplish for the business?5.3.3.8. How will you, personally, define success for this project?5.3.3.9. Is there anyone you think we need to speak with who isn't on our list? Who are those people?5.3.3.10. How would you like to be involved in the rest of the project, and what's the best way to reach you?5.3.4. Marketing stakeholders5.3.4.1. Who are your customers and users today, and how do you want that to be different in five years?5.3.4.2. How does this product fit into the overall product strategy?5.3.4.3. Who are the biggest competitors and what worries you about them? How do you expect to differentiate this product?5.3.4.4. What three or four qualities do you want people to attribute to your company and your product?5.3.4.5. What is the current state of the identity, and could we have a copy of the style guide (if there is one) and examples of it applied to materials?5.3.5. Engineering stakeholders5.3.5.1. What technology decisions have already been made? What's driving them?5.3.5.2. How large is the engineering team assigned to the project, and what are their skills?5.3.5.3. Could you draw a diagram and tell me in lay terms how the existing system works?5.3.6. Sales stakeholders5.3.6.1. Who is typically involved in the purchase decision?5.3.6.2. Why do customers buy a product like this one, and why this one over a competitor's?5.3.6.3. When you lose sales, what are the most common reasons?5.3.6.4. What things do customers complain about or ask for most often, and why?5.3.7. Senior executives5.3.7.1. What do we need to know that you don't think other members of your team have said?5.3.7.2. We know that both timeline and functionality are important, but if you had to choose one, which would it be?5.3.8. Subject matter experts5.3.8.1. What are the typical demographics and skills of potential users, and how much do these vary?5.3.8.2. What distinctions in user roles and tasks would you expect us to see?5.3.8.3. What sorts of workflows or practices do you think we'll be seeing in the field?5.3.9. Other product team members5.3.9.1. CHEAT SHEET5.3.9.2. Things to watch out for5.3.9.3. All stakeholders5.3.9.4. Marketing stakeholders5.3.9.5. Engineering stakeholders5.3.9.6. Sales stakeholders5.3.9.7. Senior executives5.3.9.8. Subject matter experts5.3.9.9. Other product team members5.4. Project Management for Stakeholder Interviews5.5. When You Can't Interview Stakeholders5.6. Summary