Personas and Why We Need Them.
Most training doesn’t fail because the content is bad.
It fails because it’s built for someone who doesn’t exist.
Not deliberately.
But unintentionally.
The problem nobody talks about
When businesses create training, they often say things like:
“This is for everyone”
“They should already know this”
“We’ll just pitch it at a sensible level”
But sensible to who?
In reality, teams are made up of people with:
different roles
different pressures
different confidence levels
different tolerance for change
And when training ignores that reality, you see the symptoms quickly:
disengagement
drop-offs
people completing training but not changing behaviour
That’s not a learner problem.
It’s a design problem.
What personas actually do (when they’re done properly)
A learner persona isn’t about inventing a fictional character for fun.
It’s a decision-making tool.
Personas help you answer questions like:
Who is this training really for?
What do they already know and what are we wrongly assuming?
What gets in their way when they try to apply learning?
What do they need help with in the flow of work?
Instead of designing for “everyone”, you design for someone specific and the learning becomes clearer, simpler, and far more effective.
Why this matters for SMEs in particular
In small and growing businesses:
people wear multiple hats
roles evolve quickly
time is tight
tolerance for “nice but not useful” training is low
If training doesn’t feel immediately relevant, it’s ignored.
Personas help you avoid:
overloading people with unnecessary content
designing training for edge cases
building courses that look polished but don’t land
They force focus.
What a useful learner persona actually includes
Forget glossy templates.
A practical persona answers real questions:
Context
What does their day actually look like?
Where does learning fit, if at all?
Role & responsibilities
What decisions do they make?
Who do they affect when things go wrong?
Behaviours & habits
Do they skim or dive deep?
Do they ask for help or struggle quietly?
Needs & goals
What are they trying to do better?
What pressure are they under right now?
Frustrations
What slows them down?
What training have they already switched off from?
If you can’t answer these confidently, you’re designing in the dark.
Personas aren’t about learning, they’re about performance
The real value of personas isn’t engagement.
It’s alignment.
When personas are clear:
learning objectives become sharper
content gets shorter
activities become more relevant
behaviour change becomes more likely
Training stops being “something people complete” and starts becoming support for real work.
Where businesses usually get stuck
Most organisations don’t avoid personas because they don’t care.
They avoid them because:
they don’t know where to start
they don’t have clean data
they don’t want another “L&D exercise”
And that’s fair.
Personas don’t need to be perfect.
They need to be good enough to guide decisions.
This is exactly what Define & Align is for
Define & Align exists to stop businesses building training on assumptions.
It’s a structured way to:
clarify the real performance problem
understand who the learning is actually for
decide whether training is even the right solution
define what good looks like before design begins
Personas are often one of the most valuable outputs, not as documents, but as shared understanding.
A simple reflection before you build anything else
Ask yourself:
Who are we designing this for really?
What are we assuming they already know?
What would they say is getting in the way?
If those answers feel fuzzy, that’s your signal.
👉 Define & Align helps you get clear before time, budget, and energy are spent in the wrong place.
Because the best training decisions are made before anything is built.
