Facilitation is generally understood to be the bread and butter for a Business Analyst looking to elicit requirements from different stakeholders. Here are some quick pointers on the benefits and uses for this method of requirements elicitation.
One-on-One Facilitated Sessions:
These meetings with key stakeholders can be extremely vital in discovering concerns and information that would not be normally captured in larger group meetings.
- By having these smaller sessions, peer pressure and politics is mostly neutralized, which allows for stakeholders to feel more at ease when articulating specific asks and needs.
- By hosting a multitude of these sessions with different stakeholders, a Business Analyst will be able to recognize where there are gaps, conflicts, or overlaps in requirements.
This type of session is much easier to organize than group facilitated sessions. Instead of being restricted by each stakeholder’s availability, a Business Analyst can individually accommodate each stakeholder’s schedule.
These One-on-One sessions can eventually lead to larger facilitated sessions.
Group Facilitated Sessions:
These sessions usually occur after a Business Analyst has already spoken to key stakeholders and gathered issues that need to be discussed.
- These sessions should have a specific objective to accomplish; for instance, there is a conflict between stakeholders which needs to be resolved.
- A Business Analyst must recognize when to guide a discussion and when to let a discussion move forward organically.
- Group Facilitated Sessions may help uncover additional requirements, conflicts, and risks.
