AI and Requirement Gathering

Introduction:

Requirement gathering is one of the primary roles of a Business Analyst and takes up much bandwidth in any type of project. The traditional ways of documenting the requirements manually, say as user stories in Jira or Confluence can be daunting task. These traditional ways are also prone to errors, lack of clarity and depend on the experience of Business Analyst to perfect.

AI can bring a massive revolution in this space by helping BAs automate manual effort of documenting the requirements and reducing the margin of errors at an exponential rate. This will also provide an opportunity for the BAs to focus on other areas and get involved in strategic decision tasks utilizing their potential to the fullest.

?This article will help in exploring the intricacies of AI and the requirement-gathering process.

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Importance of Requirement Gathering:

Requirement gathering plays a pivotal role in projects and lays the direction for design and development. Poor quality of requirements leads to ambiguities, value not being delivered, and ultimately failure of projects. Other pitfalls are miscommunication, incomplete requirements, etc.

AI can close all these gaps by improving and automating the analysis, and documentation process.

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How AI can help in the requirement-gathering process????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

1.????? Improved Analysis

• AI can help process large amounts of data, source of the data could be documents, emails, meeting minutes, support tickets, customer complaints, etc.
• Tools like IBM Watson Discovery provide the ability to generate insights from data sets saving BAs time.
• IBM Watson Discovery is based on NLP (natural language processing) for analyses and pattern recognition.

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2.????? Automating the documentation process

• AI gives the power to document the requirements, draw process flows, and track all the requirements- Forward traceability and Backward traceability.
• Jama Connect is one such tool that analyses stakeholder conversations and defines user stories, and process flow around them.

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3.????? Effective and efficient tracking

• AI can support requirement tracking, management, identifying dependencies
• Tools like Helix RM are widely used tools for requirement traceability- quick identification of gaps, leading to time-saving and defining resolution before any cascading impact

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Challenges with AI

With a plethora of advantages of AI, it comes with its challenges:

1. Privacy Breach

• Ensuring privacy while using AI is integral, AI relies on vast amounts of data
• Mis-use of the data can raise eyebrows leading to legal and ethical issues
• Data education and robust data protection steps will mitigate these issues

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2.??Lack of sympathy and empathy

• Human emotions cannot be replaced with any AI tool
• Lack of sympathy can lead to inappropriate responses and poor user experience
• Human intervention along with AI will provide better outcome

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3.??Biases in defining models

• The AI outputs are based on the data inputs, biases in data inputs will manipulate the results
• Conducting regular refinement with varied data inputs can help create better AI models

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Business Analyst and AI skills

AI literacy is important for Business Analysts in the changing world, AI can automate mundane tasks helping BA focus and channel their knowledge and skills on strategic decisions and solution designing. To thrive in this evolving role, BAs must master the following:

• AI Knowledge- BAs need a strong knowledge of AI fundamentals, including machine learning, natural language processing, and data analytics. This knowledge helps BAs identify AI opportunities, collaborate with technical teams.
• Tool Knowledge- Proficiency with AI-powered tools like Power BI, Tableau, ChatGPT is vital.
• Analytical and Critical Thinking- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills enable BAs to validate insights, address complex challenges

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Conclusion:

AI is changing the world at a rapid pace, adaptability and continuous learning are the keys to success. By adopting this massive boom of AI innovation, BAs can make an impact on the projects, teams, and organizations they are working for. One of the major time-consuming responsibilities of BA roles is requirement gathering, AI can significantly reduce the time allowing BAs to be more productive.

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