Journeys and Personas Aren’t Forever

Good journeys and personas are research data-based. And that data changes because people and systems change. Context changes. New roles emerge in businesses, or a significant societal change (i.e., the pandemic) means different interactions, experiences, attitudes, and behaviours. Sometimes faster and more sudden than you’d anticipate.

For these reasons, your personas and journeys need to be updated regularly. Things to keep in mind:

• There’s no way to know the time scales for updating ahead of time. Because you don’t necessarily know the timescales of the causal factors, but you do know, in general, you’ll need to update personas. As an indication, think low single digit years to renew them.
• Ask yourself how much the data (including context) you based your personas on has changed. That will guide you when you need to update them.
• When you update them, you are probably not starting from square one. Do an interdisciplinary assessment (market, product, society, including secondary data) to determine what and how you need to gather data to update them.
• Ultimately, the updates are about the impact on products and services, so there’s an obvious business component to deciding when and how to update.