Personas are highly detailed fictional characters, representative of the majority of users and other stakeholders (who may not directly use the end product). Personas are created to identify the needs of the target user base. Creating specific Personas can help the Scrum Core Team better understand users and their requirements and goals. Based on a Persona, the Product Owner can more effectively prioritize features to create the Prioritized Product Backlog.
Creating a Persona
Creating a Persona involves assigning a fictional name and preferably a picture such a stock image to the character. The Persona will include highly specific attributes such as age, gender, education, environment, interests, and goals. A quote illustrating the Persona’s requirements can be included as well. The personas can be used to select a small group of users to form a trageted focus group. Or this group may be selected randomly from a large pool of users and their input can be used to create or refine Personas.
Below is an example of a Persona for a travel website:
Vanessa is a 39 year old resident of San Francisco. She is pursuing her passion for traveling after having a highly successful career as an attorney. She likes to have options while picking air travel and accommodation services so that she can choose the best and the most affordable. She gets frustrated with slow and cluttered websites.
