As a Business Analyst, requirements elicitation is the technique one has to use to gather all the requirements. Requirements never come handy and a BA has to elicit the requirements from the stakeholders.
The requirements are mostly not documented and are mostly remembered by the stakeholders. For achieving goals and selecting the methodology, requirements must be elicited, recorded and should follow a methodology in doing so which should be very logical. A Business Analyst should never neglect the process of elicitation as this can later affect the project and may even lead to the failure of the project. So requirements elicitation plays a major role in initiating and for success of the project.
The following are the elicitation techniques used by a Business Analyst
- Brain storming
- Produce numerous ideas
- Set a time limit
- Make it visual
- Designate a facilitator (usually the BA)
- Watch group size! (ideally 6-8)
- Establish ground rules
- criteria for evaluating and rating ideas
- do not allow criticism
- limit discussion and evaluation
- At the end, use criteria to evaluate ideas
- Can be fun, productive, and motivating
- Document analysis
- Elicit information from existing documentation
- Helpful when subject matter experts are not available or no longer with the organization
- Use relevant documentation to study and understand relevant details
- business plans, project charters, business rules, contracts, statements of work, memos, emails, training materials, etc
- Focus Groups
- Elicit information from a select group via a moderator
- Very formal process
- More structured
- Usually has 6-12 attendees
- Requires a skilled moderator
- Promotes discussion
- Asks open questions
- Engages all members
- Remains neutral
- Saves time and cost from not conducting
- Interface Analysis
- Identify interfaces between solutions and define requirements for them
- A basis for successful interoperability
- Clarify the boundaries of the applications
- Identify interfacing stakeholders
- Define the inputs and outputs of the interface
- plus validation rules and events that trigger the interactions
- Some types of interfaces
- to/from external applications
- to/from internal applications
- to/from external hardware devices
- Interviews
- Ask questions geared toward uncovering information
- Formal or informal
- Directed at an individual or selected group
- Maintain focus on the goals of the interview
- Open-ended questions find information and gaps
- Closed-ended questions confirm and validate
- Success depends on
- Knowledge of interviewer and interviewee(s)
- Experience of the interviewer
- Skill in documenting discussions
- The readiness of interviewee to provide information
- Relationship between the parties interview
- Observation
- Study a stakeholder’s work environment
- Good when documenting current or changing processes
- Passive/Invisible
- observer does not ask questions
- takes notes
- generally stays out of the way
- Active/Visible
- dialog with the user
- while they are performing their work
- Maybe disruptive
- Maybe time-consuming
- Process Modeling
- Understand work with multiple steps, roles, or departments
- Initiated by an event
- Activities to include
- Manual
- Automated
- Combination of both
- Visual nature may help some people
- It can become complex and unwieldy if not structured carefully.
- Complex processes should be broken into their components to aid in understanding
- Prototyping
- Visually represent the user interface
- Good validation measure
- Great for interaction
- Supports visual learners
- Focus on the whole solution or just a specific area
- Great for validating requirements and uncovering gaps
- Can take lots of time if bogged down in the “hows” instead of the “whats”
- Requirements Workshops
- One of the most effective techniques
- Have an agenda
- Carefully select attendees
- Use an experienced, neutral facilitator
- Use a scribe (not the facilitator)
- One or a few days in duration
- Elicit information in a short period
- Too many participants slow it down
- Too few participants cause gaps
- Team member availability is an issue
- Combine with other techniques
- surveys or questionnaires
- prototyping for clarity
- process modeling for understanding
- Survey/Questionnaire
- Efficiently elicit information from many people
- Have a purpose
- Appropriate audience
- Establish a timeframe
- Clear and concise questions
- Focus on the business objective
- Support with follow-up interviews
- Closed-ended questions
- Range of possible responses is very well understood
- Easier to analyze
- Open-ended questions
- Extra detail when the range of response is not well understood
- Harder to analyze and quantify
We are conducting business analyst training in various locations across India such as Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Contact us for more information