Business Analysis - Conduct Elicitation Activity

After we prepare everything for the elicitation, the next step is "action". We need to conduct the elicitation activity. BABOK explain the activity below very well. Take a look and enjoy.

3.2 Conduct Elicitation Activity

#Purpose
Meet with stakeholder(s) to elicit information regarding their needs.

#Description
The elicitation event takes place (brainstorming, focus groups, interviews, observation, prototyping, requirements workshop), or elicitation is performed (document analysis, interface analysis) or distributed (survey / questionnaire).

#Input
Business Need : Required to ensure that the BA understand what information should be elicited from the stakeholders. This input is used when eliciting business requirements (with the exception of the business need itself).

Organizational Process Assets : May include templates or processes for these activities.

Requirements Management Plan : Determines what information needs to be record and tracked as an outcome of the activity.

Schedule Resources : The relevant stakeholders, location, and other resources must be available.

Solution Scope and Business Case : are required to ensure that the BA understand what information should be elicited from the stakeholders.

Supporting Materials : Whiteboards, flipcharts, documents, and other materials must be available while the activity is conducted.

#Elements
Tracing requirements : While eliciting the requirements it is important to guard against scope creep. Tracing requirements back to business goals / objective helps to validate whether a requirement should be included.

Capturing requirements attributes : While eliciting the requirement documenting requirements attributes such as the the requirement's source, value and priority will aid in managing each requirement throughout its life cycle.

Metrics : Tracking the elicitation participants and the actual time spent eliciting the requirements provides a basis for future planning.

#Techniques
Data Dictionary and Glossary (9.5) : A business glossary is an essential asset for all elicitation techniques. The glossary should contain key domain terms along with their business definitions.

General Techniques : Refer to each technique below for unique elements of conducting that particular technique.

• Brainstorming (9.3)
• Document Analysis (9.9)
• Focus Groups (9.11)
• Interface Analysis (9.13)
• Interviews (9.14)
• Observation (9.18)
• Prototyping (9.22)
• Requirements Workshop (9.23)
• Survey / Questionnaire (9.31)

#Stakeholders
Customer, Domain SME, End User, Supplier and Sponsor : May participate in the task as a source of requirements.

Implementation SME, Operational Support, PM, Supplier, and Tester : May participate to improve their understanding of the stakeholder needs and to aid stakeholders in understanding the tradeoffs faced by the project team.

Regulator : May participate directly (as a source requirements) and may also dictate that a specific process be followed or that certain records be kept.

#Output
Elicitation Results : May include documentation appropriate to the technique and capture the information provided by the stakeholder.

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Next : Document Elicitation Result