Stakeholder analysis and the trusted advisor role
How to find every stakeholder (internal, external and the ones discovered late), record their influence, earn trusted-advisor status by speaking the customer's language and following up with the people who matter, and carry meaning both ways between the business and the technical team.
Identify key stakeholders and develop relationships with them as a trusted advisor to act as a liaison between business and technical teams.
~8 min read · 12 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Identify key stakeholders, internal and external, and add a stakeholder discovered late to the analysis instead of routing around them.
- Classify a stakeholder as internal or external (owner, manager, employee; customer, partner, supplier, competitor, regulator).
- Pick the behaviours that earn trusted-advisor status: using the customer's terminology, persistent follow-up with key people, investing in skeptical groups, asking why.
- Act as the liaison: translate business needs to the technical team and technical constraints (including technical debt) back to the business, then confirm understanding.
Key terms: stakeholder (anyone with an interest in, or affected by, the issue); stakeholder analysis (the document of who to talk to and why); trusted advisor (a BA whose input the business seeks, not an order taker); liaison (the go-between for business and IT); technical debt (Trailhead's example: unnecessary complexity such as an obsolete custom object).
Key facts
- Detail
- Interest in, or may be affected by, the issue
- Detail
- Competitor, customer, partner, supplier, regulator
- Detail
- Who to talk with, who fleshes out requirements, who gives a range of perspectives
- Detail
- Pause to ask, then use the term as soon as possible, including in requirements
- Detail
- Responsive people may not hold the top priorities
- Detail
- Go-to person for communication between IT and business
- Detail
- Time, attention, expectation, language
- Detail
- Early delivery builds trust and eases access to SMEs
- Detail
- Example: an obsolete custom junction object is unnecessary complexity; retiring it reduces time to deploy future innovations
Sources for this section (7)
- Explore Techniques for Information Discoverytrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Explore Documentation Typestrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Learn the Customs of Your Customertrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Learn About the Salesforce Business Analyst Roletrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Sharpen Your Communication Skillstrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Schedule for Successtrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Select and Prioritize Featurestrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- What should you do when a stakeholder uses a business term you don't know?
- Why is the most responsive stakeholder not necessarily the one to spend time with?
- When a leader affected by the change is discovered mid-discovery, what is the right move?
- Why should a BA present options on a request that adds technical debt rather than let the technical lead reject it?
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