Module 3 · Business Analysis Fundamentals
Eliciting requirements
Draw out what people really need with interviews, workshops, observation and documents, ask questions that get facts rather than opinions, and dig to the root cause.
About 20 minutes
The problem
Ask Ashgrove's managing partner what she needs and she'll say "a better system". Ask the accounts officer and she'll say "the lawyers send their time sheets late". Ask a lawyer and they'll say "accounts send invoices with the wrong rates". Everyone is partly right, and nobody has the whole picture.
Requirements aren't sitting in people's heads waiting to be collected. They have to be elicited: drawn out, checked against each other and against the evidence. People describe symptoms, propose solutions and forget the workarounds they've done for years. A BA's skill is to get past all three to what's actually happening and what's actually needed.
The concept
Elicitation techniques
| Technique | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Interviews | depth, sensitive topics, one person's view | hearing one side only |
| Workshops | agreeing across groups, prioritising | loud voices dominating |
| Observation (job shadowing) | how work really happens, workarounds | people behaving differently when watched |
| Document and data analysis | facts, volumes, current rules | documents describe how it should work, not how it does |
| Surveys | many people, simple questions | shallow answers |
Use more than one. Observation and data often contradict interviews, and the contradiction is usually where the real problem is.
Questions that get facts
- Open questions get stories: "Walk me through what happens when a matter's work is finished." "How do you know an invoice is overdue?"
- Closed questions confirm details: "Is that every month?" "Who signs it off?"
- Avoid leading questions, which plant the answer: "Don't you think automatic reminders would help?" Ask instead: "What happens after an invoice is sent?"
- Ask for examples: "Tell me about the last invoice that was paid late." A specific case beats a general opinion.
- Ask about exceptions: "When doesn't it work like that?"
Five whys
Keep asking "why?" to get from the symptom to the root cause:
- Why are invoices paid late? Clients don't pay until they're chased.
- Why aren't they chased sooner? Nobody notices until a partner asks.
- Why does nobody notice? Overdue invoices aren't listed anywhere; you'd have to filter the spreadsheet.
- Why isn't there a list? The spreadsheet has no due date, only the issue date.
- Why not? Ashgrove never set payment terms, so there's no "due" to measure against.
The root cause isn't the software. It's that Ashgrove has no payment terms, so nothing is ever technically overdue until someone gets annoyed.
Example
Interview notes, organised the way a BA records them, from the accounts officer:
| Type | Note |
|---|---|
| Fact | Issues about 17 invoices a month, by email, as PDFs made in Word. |
| Fact | Lawyers send their time to her by WhatsApp or on paper, usually 1–3 weeks after the work. |
| Pain point | Spends 2–3 days a month chasing payments by phone, mostly when a partner asks about a client. |
| Workaround | Keeps her own list of "slow payers" in a notebook. |
| Idea (hers) | "If the invoice said 'due in 30 days', clients would take it more seriously." |
Separating facts, pain points, workarounds and ideas keeps you honest. The notebook of slow payers is gold: it's a requirement (see who pays late) that nobody would ever have written down.
Walkthrough
- Before any interview, look at the data so you can ask informed questions. How many invoices did Ashgrove issue in 2025 (the first task below)?
- Choose techniques for Ashgrove: interview the managing partner, the accounts officer and two lawyers; observe the accounts officer preparing a month's invoices; analyse the invoice data.
- Write your interview questions for the accounts officer (the second task below).
- Run "five whys" on another symptom, such as "invoices have the wrong rates".
- After each interview, sort your notes into facts, pain points, workarounds and ideas, and send a short summary back to the interviewee to check you understood.
Practice
Practice
How many invoices did Ashgrove issue in 2025?
Task
8 minWrite six to ten interview questions for Ashgrove's accounts officer about how invoices are prepared, sent and chased. Put each question on its own line. Make most of them open, include at least one asking for a specific example, and avoid leading questions.
Your work is checked for
- Six to ten questions, each on its own line ending with ?
- At least four open questions (starting with what, how, why, who, when, walk me, tell me or describe)
- Asks for a specific example (last time, an example, recent)
- No leading questions (don't you think, wouldn't it, isn't it, surely)
Check your understanding
Answer every question to check.