Putting the customer at the center is one of the core values from the agile manifesto and without agility there is no digital transformation. How can you ensure that customer centricity is always in view and thus drive digital transformation? One method for this is the development of so-called personas.
Personas are fictitious people created with real character traits, needs and life circumstances by the project or product team. They represent a specific target group and support the team in aligning the product with the needs of the potential customer and developing it in a target- and needs-specific manner.
The focus is therefore on the customer’s usage behavior so that he can use the product as effectively as possible. This is because personas can be used to predict the usage behavior of the specific target group. It is important to note that while the persona is fictional, the characteristics attributed to it are real, data-based, and derived from the target audience.
Just like the target group itself, the persona is constantly evolving and must be questioned and adapted again and again. Persona characteristics help distinguish stakeholder desires from actual customer needs. It is also much easier to see the person using the product in front of you and thus empathize with them. Needs can thus be seen, understood and implemented through their lens.
Software expert Alan Cooper first introduced the method, which is used to enrich target group descriptions with a tangible personality, in “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum” in 1999, thus laying the foundation for the persona method (Latin for mask). The original intention was to use the method in the context of human-machine interactions, but it quickly evolved into a method for needs and target group analysis.
