Posted: June 1st, 2015

Business Analysis (Stakeholders, Communication and Elicitation)

1. Elicitation Essay (1000 words) – Read the BABOK 2.0 documentation and any other Business analysis references. Write a well-structured essay detailing your understanding of elicitation and why it is important.

2. Conduct Stakeholder Analysis – Identify the stakeholders (including the solution team actually developing your BA solution) who may be impacted by your business analysis initiative. Analyse their influence, authority (approve, sign off, veto), and project attitude (ie. level of interest) using a RACI matrix (see example in “Project Process Example – Low level process V5.doc”) or other relevant tool if you have another preference.

3. Plan Business Analysis Communication – Determine what/when/how information the various stakeholders and solution team need to be provided with about the business analysis you are conducting from start to finish. Detail what forms it should take (verbal, written, email etc), when it should happen (weekly, needs basis etc). You can use a “Stakeholder Planning Sheet” (see example in “Project Process Example – Low level process V5.doc”) or other relevant tool if you have another preference.

4. Conduct Elicitation – Meet with stakeholders and solution team to elicit information regarding their needs and issues including assumptions, constraints and risks that they can foresee. What documentation you produce here depends on what techniques you use in your elicitation. Please write based on the following:
• agendas and minutes from stakeholder/team meetings;
• notes and/or results from stakeholder interviews;
• reports/analysis from gap or goal analysis;
• diagrams from mind mapping exercises;
• reports/analysis from SWOT or similar analysis;