During course of our consulting work, we have to engage with business users, both senior level executives as well as  individual contributors, to conduct discovery sessions to find out business requirements in order to either propose a solution or implement a packaged solution (Salesforce or Agile PLM,  in case high level requirements are already defined).

Finding requirements is always a challenging work. Based on our years of work with business users, we observed some patterns.  Based on these observations, we came up with a methodology to ensure consistency in the process.

We call it Listen, Synthesize, Present (LSP). Below is a description of each step in this process.

Listen

During this step, our focus is to interact with users to collect as much information as possible using various tools like interviews, observations, and documents.

Synthesize

Once we have required information, we process collected information,  validate it against multiple references. Validated information is then documented.

Present

Once information is validated and documented, we present it to all stake holders along with senior executives. High-level problem statement and solution is reviewed along with potential benefits.