rina wrote
Thanks a lot for your advise, Chris and Adrian!
I am trying on the things suggested by you. You suggested that try answering the WHat system can do and answering all the why's but Are there any general questions where you can start from when talking to users about the requirements.....and then get into details???
Also, how can you make users to trust you and become more comfortable in your company?
Once again,thanks a lot for your suggestions.
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Hi Rina,
Probably one of the biggest fears that new business analysts have is the fear of asking the wrong questions. My advice to you is to stop finding the right questions - just use your analytical skills to find out what are some of the problems that the users are facing. Don't ask them "What are your requirements?" as they don't know either.
Begin by asking questions such as:
- What are the top three problems that you are faced with today and which a new system (or enhancement) could solve for you?
- If you were to make one change to your current process, what would it be?
- Why do you think this project is important to your job?
While these questions are very generic, they will get your users to talk. Just be ready to listen! Most analysts love to talk a lot (unfortunately - I'm one of them). ;-) The end users want to get the job done and, once you get them talking, you can't stop. Be ready to listen carefully, very carefully! Document what they say!
After your requirements workshops (meetings) go over your notes and make sure you clean the up. Write down anything you don't understand and any questions that you may have. These will become the questions for the next requirements meeting. Also - being to organize the information that you are gathering. You'll begin to see patterns of major issues/problems that the users have and you'll start to identify some of the critical requirements.
In addition, one question that you should be asking over and over again is "Why?". It takes a number of why to get to the bottom of the "real" requirement.
For example, in one of my projects the users were asking for the ability to print out all the data they entered in the system before submitting it to the next department. I asked why? They said that they wanted to have a copy on file? I asked why? They said because they wanted to reference it later? I asked why? They said because when the data gets to the other department and it's wrong they want to be able to show that they entered the data correctly! Now we had discovered their real problem! They did not really need the printouts, they were just sick and tired of the problems with the data transfer process. In then end, rather than creating useless reports we fixed the data transfer problems at a fraction of the cost. Everybody was happy!
"Why?" is your friend! ;-)
Another thing you need to remember is that nobody expects the business analyst to be a business expert. If all BAs knew everything about the business there would be no need for SME (subject matter experts). The BAs could just write down the requirements and on they go. But that is far from the truth! The role of the analyst is to facilitate the conversation and to help the business experts get to the bottom of the real requirements.
Find an SME/end user which you feel comfortable with and ask them to point you to some resources (knowledge bases, books, manuals, etc.) that you can use to come up to speed on the specific industry that you are working in. For example: if you are working for a retail company, ask for the operating procedures for opening and closing the stores, ask for the sales training manual, etc. While you will not be able to gather requirements reading this stuff you'll be able to quickly understand the big picture of how the business operates (also known as the AS-IS).
Hope this helps!
Keep us posted on your progress!
- Adrian