Interview Questions for Business Analysts and Systems Analysts

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INTERVIEW QUESTION:

How are personas used in requirements elicitation on agile projects?

Posted by Chris Adams

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Categories: Business Analysis, Systems Analysis, Agile Methods, Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA), Elicitation (BABOK KA), Tools

ANSWER

A persona is a description of a fictional person, representing key characteristics of a specific user class or group. Personas provide models of the user community that make it easier for project teams to understand and predict how users will act and react, based on characteristics such as age, education, knowledge, and attitudes.

A key purpose that personas serve on agile projects is in the formulation of user stories, so that each story is written from the perspective of a distinct person with known attributes – rather than a generic “user” or job role.

Personas are also invaluable in making design decisions, and determining how usability can be optimized for the user community.

As with all other aspects of Agile projects, personas should be developed collaboratively amongst the team and refined iteratively over the course of the project.

Here is a short video that highlights the need to validate personas against real data and real user information, as well as the benefits of building personas iteratively as more information becomes known – The Secret to Developing Effective Personas.

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Sandy Lambert
Business Architect
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