Planning discovery and preparing for elicitation
How to build a discovery plan around who your stakeholders are, what each group uniquely knows and how much time it can give, and what to prepare before the first elicitation session: the business need, project history, enterprise analysis and a draft current-state flow.
Plan discovery activities based on the target stakeholders to perform a thorough analysis of business needs.
~8 min read · 12 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Know that planning discovery starts with identifying and analyzing stakeholders, then matching activities to each group.
- Tailor the format to a group's role, influence and availability (executives, process performers, distributed staff, large populations).
- Name the activities of the prepare-for-elicitation stage and reject activities that belong to later phases.
- Gather project history and run enterprise analysis before the first sessions, and know how enterprise analysis differs from strategy, gap and interface analysis.
- Choose a cross-departmental process map when several teams share a process and blame each other for delays.
Key terms: stakeholder (anyone who has an interest in, or may be affected by, the issue); elicitation (drawing forth information from stakeholders and other sources); project history (background on prior work and decisions, also called project orientation); enterprise analysis (learning the organization's structure and how departments interact); stakeholder wheel (a tool to recognize each stakeholder and their level of influence).
Key facts
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- Anyone who has an interest in, or may be affected by, the issue
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- Competitors, customers, partners, suppliers, regulators
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- Prepare, conduct, confirm results
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- Also called project orientation; prevents repeated work and rehashed decisions
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- Organization structure, reporting lines, department functions and interactions
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- A rough draft from existing documentation and training materials is fine
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- Used to include all stakeholders wherever they are located
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- Anyone missing from input to outcome invalidates a mapping workshop
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- Can cut across departments and include external partners
Sources for this section (4)
- Explore Techniques for Information Discoverytrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Learn the Customs of Your Customertrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- See Business Process Mapping in Practicetrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Get Started with Process Mappingtrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- What should a BA do first when asked to plan discovery for a new initiative?
- Why gather project history before the first sessions of a later phase?
- When is an incomplete draft of the current-state flow good enough to bring to a session?
- Which analysis tells you who reports to whom and how departments interact?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Business Analyst pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 22 lessons of the Business Analyst guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Inline practice questions and one-click topic practice (12 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
- Unlimited timed practice exams