I recently read an article by Laura Brandenburg, an experienced Business Analyst Consultant - which outlines a great idea she has on how to effectively use a structured stakeholder requests list for defining scope, fleshing out requirements - and ultimately to control scope creep.
In summary, the idea looks like this:
1. Put together all competing stakeholder requests
- list out all the requirements you've received
- capture these in a simple excel spreadsheet
2. Then, evaluate each request
- determine if it is a business need
- determine if it is a requirement
- determine if it is a detailed or a high-level requirement
3. Then, begin to look at the requests as a whole
- determine if any requests relate to one another
- group requests together
4. Help stakeholders decide which items are in scope for the project and which are not in scope
- first, list out the business benefits for each item - consider organizational fit, cost of implementation, which systems are impacted ...
- identify items which have multiple requestors and consider these as potentially high priority items
- then, articulate this list as a brief category or a perhaps a full benefits statement, depending on the circumstance
For more information and a roadmap on this, click the link below:
How to use a Stakeholder Requests List as Part of Scope Definition