Communication Method

To become a Business Analyst, the most important thing required is the “Communication” skill. Communication bridges the gap of understanding between the individuals.
A Business Analyst will communicate with several people inside and outside of the organization such as Business Users, Project Managers, Scrum Team, Developers,
Testers and other stakeholders who are related to the product.

A Business Analayst’s job is to draw out the requirements from the Business Users and communicating the same to Developers and Testers.
Thus, there are several methods in which a BA will communicate to these Business Users. These methods are called Requirement Elicitation Techniques.
Below are the Requirement Elicitation Techniques:
1. Brainstorming
2. Document Analysis
3. Workshop
4. Observation
5. Reverse Engineering
6. JAD (Joint Application Development)
7. Interview
8. Questionnaire
9. Prototyping

A Brainstorming session is organized where multiple Business Users (6 to 8) come along with the creative ideas and thus, making it easy for BA to draw out
the requirements.

Observation are of 2 types:
1. Active Observation
2. Passive Observation

In Active Observation, the BA actively participates in the discussion with Business Users to elicit the requirements
In Passive Observation, the BA acts as a Spectator during the discussion happening among the Business Users. If a BA feels that the discussion is going
out of track, the BA pitches in and makes sure that the discussion continues related to the Product being discussed.

One of the effective methods to draw out accurate requirements is JAD sessions where other stakeholders such as Developers and testers may participate along with
the BAs and the Business Users.

In case the Business Users are not readily available for the discussion on requirements, a Questionnaire is sent to the users and the Business Users has
to make sure that the queries in Questionnaire are addressed within specified time range.

To make sure that the requirements are understood well by the BA, the BA prepares a prototype of the given product and the same is provided to stakeholders to give
a clear picture on the look and feel of the product.

After elicitating all possible requirements from the Business Users, the BA prepares the Functional Requirements specification document which contains the
detailed explanation of the requirements. The same is sent to Business Users for approval.
A meeting is then scheduled with the Developers to communicate the requirements so that the same can be implemented. During the product development phase,
the requirements are communicated to Testers and the required walkthrough sessions are scheduled where BA communicates with Testing team and make them understand
the requirements well.

From the beginning of SDLC until the deployment of the product in the Production environment, the daily status reports are sent to the stakeholders to make sure
that the project is in good health.