I add another technique too. I try to write the story of the people. Who are they? Where have they come from? Where are they going? When I see them in motion, I understand them better. I know a games company that always writes a persona as a family. What is mum doing right now? What is dad doing? etc. The point being, I think, that context also matters.

Thanks for the comment and good to meet you!

The classic condition for creating a “fictional” persona is the typical IT project where all the real control for designing a good solution have been removed: A deadline/budget has been established that doesn’t allow for the real work to happen, so people are forced to “make shit up” (people might think this is easier, but for conscientious people it’s WAY more difficult). So you leverage what facts you do have or shape them to all the assumptions of the fictitious design constraints that have already been baked into the solution to meet the deadline/budget. You may even do some research to find interesting potential motivators for the individuals. In one case were I was making up a persona for a proposal, I researched the history of airline flight attendants and extrapolated facts like in 10 years their salaries had grown less that 1/10 of a percent — suggesting they didn’t do the job for the money.

A “factual” persona is one that is a composite of actual evidences of individuals who are or will be involved in the resulting solution.

An “actual” persona is a real example of a single individual (named, or unnamed) who has been deemed to be representative of a particular relationship genre.