Concepts
Stakeholder values are an important aspect to consider when designing or redesigning a product. As a business analyst or a project manager preparing for PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA) certification, understanding the stakeholder values will enable you to prioritize requirements based on their significance and impact. As a PMI-PBA aspirant, you are expected to grasp and employ elicitation techniques to identify stakeholder values.
Elicitation Techniques
Elicitation techniques are tools and techniques applied by business analysts to gather requirements from stakeholders. There are several elicitation techniques you can employ to determine stakeholder values about a product. Some of the principal ones include;
- Interviews: Interviews involve one-on-one sessions with stakeholders to understand their needs and expectations concerning the product. The business analyst conducting the interview can use open-ended or closed-ended questions to gather this information.
- Focus Groups: Focus groups bring together stakeholders from different departments or functions with diverse perspectives about the product.
- Surveys or Questionnaires: These tools are used to gather information from a broad group of stakeholders. They are particularly useful when the stakeholders are spread out geographically.
- Brainstorming Sessions: This approach allows for more free-flowing discussions where stakeholders can offer up creative ideas or suggest necessary improvements to the product.
- Document Analysis: It involves reviewing existing documents related to the product. These documents may range from business reports, strategic plans, market research data, among others.
- Observation or Job Shadowing: In this technique, business analysts silently observe stakeholders as they interact with the product in their work environment. They record their findings to use as a basis for analyzing requirements.
- Prototypes: Prototypes are a preliminary version of the product that stakeholders can interact with. These interactions give the stakeholders first-hand experiences to provide relevant feedback from their perspectives.
Determining Stakeholder Values
Every Stakeholder has a unique set of values depending on their needs, preferences, and expectations about a product. Stakeholder values may vary widely; some may value the product’s functionality above everything else; others might place a high premium on the product’s ease-of-use or cost-effectiveness. Eliciting these values requires the combination of various elicitation techniques.
For instance, while conducting interviews, the business analyst may discover that senior management values profitability above all. Conversely, the marketing department might prioritize customer satisfaction, whereas the IT department prioritizes ease-of-data integration with existing systems. Collectively, these diverse values provide a comprehensive and realistic picture of what’s important among your stakeholders, enabling you to prioritize product requirements effectively.
The collected stakeholder’ values can be tabulated as follows:
| Stakeholder | Stakeholder Group | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Senior Management | Organizational Leaders | High Profitability |
| Marketing Department | Marketing Personnel | Customer Satisfaction |
| IT Department | IT Personnel | Data Integration |
Prioritizing Requirements
After identifying stakeholder values, the next step is to prioritize requirements based on these values. Requirements can be categorized as ‘Must-haves’, ‘Should-haves’, ‘Could-haves’, and ‘Won’t haves’. This approach, sometimes termed the MoSCoW method, helps in aligning stakeholder values to the product requirements.
For instance, if ‘Ease of use’ is a highly valued criteria amongst your stakeholders, any requirement that significantly enhances the product’s usability should be categorized as a ‘Must-have’. Similarly, if a requirement marginally increases cost but does not evidently add to the product’s value as judged by stakeholder values, it could be categorized as a ‘Won’t have’ requirement.
Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding stakeholder values and applying elicitation techniques are crucial to effective product development. They hold the key to unlocking the highest value for all stakeholders and ensuring the product meets their expectations. Therefore, as a PMI-PBA aspirant, you should be proficient in employing these tools and techniques to ensure successful product outcomes.
Answer the Questions in Comment Section
1) True or False: Elicitation techniques can provide a way to identify stakeholder values regarding a project or product, helping in prioritizing requirements.
• True
• False
Answer: True
Explanation: Elicitation techniques refer to data collection methods to gather information, and often include interviews, focus groups, surveys, and document analysis. It is beneficial in understanding stakeholder’s perception of value and their priorities for the project.
2) Which of the following are common elicitation techniques that can be used to determine stakeholder values? Choose all that apply.
• a) Interview
• b) Analysis of existing documentation
• c) Prototyping
• d) Email survey
Answer: a, b, c, d
Explanation: All of the choice techniques are common ways to elicit information from stakeholders, making them suitable for capturing valuable insights needed for requirements prioritization.
3) In the elicitation process for stakeholders, communication and collaboration are not necessary.
• a) True
• b) False
Answer: b) False
Explanation: Communication and collaboration are key factors in the elicitation process, it allows key stakeholders to share their ideas, concerns, and values regarding the project without any misunderstanding.
4) The decision-making technique that is most commonly used to determine which requirements are the most important is known as:
• a) Voting
• b) Delphi technique
• c) Nominal group technique
• d) Multi-criteria decision analysis
Answer: d) Multi-criteria decision analysis
Explanation: This technique provides a way to compare and prioritize several different alternatives based on defined criteria, making it particularly useful for prioritizing requirements.
5) Surveys or questionnaires used in elicitation techniques are only effective with a large number of stakeholders.
• a) True
• b) False
Answer: b) False
Explanation: Surveys and questionnaires can be effective even with a small number of participants, if the participants are well chosen and the questions are well crafted.
6) Stakeholder values, as identified through elicitation techniques, are completely independent from project requirements.
• a) True
• b) False
Answer: b) False
Explanation: Stakeholder values inform project requirements, as these often reflect what they deem important in the project’s outcome.
7) The elicitation of stakeholder values regarding a product can occur only at the start of a project.
• a) True
• b) False
Answer: b) False
Explanation: Elicitation can and should be an ongoing process, as stakeholder values can change as a project progresses, and new stakeholders may be identified later.
8) True or False: Document analysis is an interactive elicitation technique.
• True
• False
Answer: False
Explanation: Document analysis is done based on existing documents and it is not an interactive technique unlike interviews or workshops.
9) Stakeholder values can be identified from which of the following?
• a) Interviews
• b) Observation
• c) Prototyping
• d) All of the above
Answer: d) All of the above
Explanation: All listed elicitation techniques can help in uncovering stakeholder values, though each may be suited to different situations or stakeholders.
10) Elicitation techniques are primarily used for:
• a) Identifying potential project risks.
• b) Collecting data to inform decision-making.
• c) Communicating project status to stakeholders.
• d) Developing project schedules.
Answer: b) Collecting data to inform decision-making.
Explanation: The primary purpose of elicitation techniques is to gather information from stakeholders, which can then be used to inform decision-making, such as prioritizing requirements.
Great insight on using elicitation techniques for determining stakeholder values. It’s crucial for setting a baseline for requirement prioritization!
Does anyone have experience with using focus groups for stakeholder elicitation?
I’ve found that interviews usually provide deeper insights compared to other techniques. What’s your take on this?
It’s essential to document stakeholder values properly to maintain clarity throughout the project lifecycle.
Appreciate the detailed post!
I think stakeholder workshops are underrated as an elicitation technique. You get real-time feedback and can address questions on the spot.
Thanks for the post, very informative!
I’ve always struggled with prioritizing requirements. Any tips on how you incorporate stakeholder values effectively into this process?