In IIBA Denmark we use personas

“To build the right initiatives, content and events, we need to understand the people behind our community.”

By Ronnie KofoedAugust 2026

In January 2025, a group of passionate business analysis professionals gathered to discuss the possibility of establishing an IIBA chapter in Denmark. There was a distinct sense of energy in the room that evening. The 25–30 people who attended shared a common ambition: to create a professional community that would connect, inspire, and support business analysts across Denmark. That shared vision ultimately became the chapter we know today.

But who were those individuals, and who are the people joining our community today? What motivates them to attend events, read articles, volunteer their time, and contribute to the growth of the profession? What needs, aspirations, and challenges bring them to our community?

In this article, we put on our business analyst hats and reach into one of our most familiar tools: personas. By exploring the different personas that make up our community, we can better understand the people we serve and the motivations that drive them. These insights can help us shape our events, content, and initiatives to create greater value for current and future members of the IIBA Denmark community.

The case: introduction of the problem

Imagine you are a business analyst working with the IIBA Denmark Chapter. Your task is to help the organisation grow its community, shape meaningful initiatives, and make informed decisions about where to invest its time and energy.

Like any organisation, the chapter operates with limited resources. There are only so many volunteers, hours, opportunities, and pieces of content that can be created. Every decision matters. But unlike a commercial organisation, success is not measured in revenue or profit. The chapter's purpose is to foster a thriving professional community where business analysts can learn, connect, and support one another in their professional growth.

Faced with these constraints and ambitions, where would you begin?

As business analysts, our instinct is to understand the people we serve. Before deciding which events to host, what content to create, or which initiatives to prioritise, we need to understand our stakeholders. Who are they? What are they trying to achieve? What challenges do they face, and what motivates them to engage with the community?

There are many techniques available to help us answer these questions. Stakeholder analysis, interviews, surveys, and observation can all provide valuable insights. For this exercise, however, we chose to use personas as a way of bringing our community to life and creating a shared understanding of the people behind the membership.

The process began with a brainstorming workshop drawing on personal experiences, feedback from past events, observations from online communities, and inspiration from peer organisations. As ideas emerged, patterns began to form. Groups of people with similar goals, interests, experiences, and motivations started to appear, allowing us to cluster them into distinct personas.

The first persona we identified was the Experienced Business Analyst. While represented by an individual name and image, this persona does not describe a single person. Instead, it represents a collection of characteristics, behaviours, motivations, and needs shared by many members of our community.

What is next?

As business analysts, we know that analysis is rarely perfect from the start. It is often better to begin with a useful model and refine it through experience than to spend too much time trying to create the perfect one. Personas are no different.

The first version of a persona is built on the information available today: our observations, experiences, assumptions, and insights. As the persona is used to support decisions, inspire initiatives, and shape new analysis, we learn more about what information is valuable and where our understanding can be improved. In that sense, a persona is not a finished product but a living artifact that evolves alongside the community it represents.

The Experienced Business Analyst is the first persona we have identified within the IIBA Denmark community. By understanding the motivations, goals, and challenges of this group, we can make more informed decisions about the events we organise, the content we create, and the ways we engage with our members.

One interesting observation from our work so far is that many members of the IIBA Denmark Chapter board closely resemble the Experienced Business Analyst persona. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise. If we were to create a fictional member named Sofie Madsen, there is a fair chance she might already be serving on the board.