As I talk with more and more people about personas, I find very few who have heard of them. I find this interesting as my social and business spheres are mostly populated with people who build, market or sell software for a living. Of the people I have recently spoken with, some product managers, a few marketing people, and none of the developers (except those I’ve provided personas to) are familiar with the concept of personas. At a recent BPMA meeting, I quickly asked the group how many of them were familiar with personas. Roughly ¼ of the attendees raised their hands. As a persona evangelist I clearly have my work cut out for me.
Here are my top 5 reasons why everyone isn’t yet using personas:
#5. ‘The Inmates Are Running the Asylum’ was published in 1998, and good news travels slowly.
#4. Some companies have a respected internal person who advises the developers and marketers on the user and buyer needs, skills and goals.
This is akin to the ‘feed a fish vs. learn to fish’ metaphor, because while not a substitute for personas, a strong user and buyer advocate will eliminate the screaming need for personas within the development organization.
#3. You’ve seen cardboard personas and decided personas are just more paperwork.
IMHO, this is a mistake similar to deciding that OO programming wasn’t useful just because you started working with early version of the MFC.
#2. The companies using personas realize they have a competitive advantage, and are keeping quiet.
Not to make you paranoid, but might this include one of your competitors? Have they just put out a great new release? Are they about to?
#1. Programmers just want to program.
Personas are the cure for analysis paralysis! If you want to do more programming and less of everything that isn’t programming, tell your management you want a set of rock-solid personas.
While there are probably more reasons than this list of why you may not have heard of or not be using personas, I’m confident it’s just a matter of time before all good developers realize they need a set of personas to go with their requirements.
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