| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Elicitation | Elicitation is simply the drawing forth or receiving of information from stakeholders or other sources. |
During Discovery Meetings, we are looking to collect information from various sources such that we can conduct the analysis work that needs to be done down the line, and it is elicitation that allows requirements and design information to be understood. Elicitation efforts occur on a continuing basis, and often as a result of other portions of business analysis work being completed.
Elicitation efforts may be conducted in either planned Discovery Meetings or other unplanned situations. For example, these could be:
These all provide very valuable information; however, oftentimes the information that we discover through a simple conversation, a text message, email, a back-and-forth at lunch between ourselves and a key stakeholder with a unique perspective can uncover just as revelatory of information as our most well-thought-out, preplanned elicitation session might. All of this information should be captured and organized in CaseComplete to ensure we do not overlook any relevant information that was provided by the Client.
Seek to understand how things are, how they should be, and how to develop a plan that helps the Client get there. We also need to form a clear idea and perspective of what the organization's current state and challenges might be. It's only by conducting this sort of investigative work that we can uncover the best possible solutions and begin to define requirements and designs that can help us achieve our goals.
This is taking the time to thoughtfully consider what sort of data sources or stakeholders we might want to learn from within our elicitation efforts. (Defining meeting attendees, the meeting agenda, and communicating any required data that needs to be prepared that supports any agenda topics)
==(This could include anyone who is either impacted or might have an impact on a change that we might be interested in exploring.)==
This includes ensuring that we've heard them correctly from stakeholders and double-checking data against different sources.
For example, we tell stakeholders to show up for a Discovery Meeting, but don't provide them with an agenda, they show up cold without the perspective and without having put in any prior thought that could help them to provide us with more important and more useful information. As such, we have to continue to provide information before we elicit from stakeholders after we have elicited from stakeholders when moving forward to gain consensus for change.