Requirements Don’t Come From Business: They Come From Business Analysis

Let’s finish with the biggest misconception of business analysis

Image source: Pickpik

The first training course I took as an aspiring business analyst many years ago had a very telling name: “How to gather and document business requirements.”

The course had some good material on what requirements are and what they are not, what makes a good requirement, and how to document them without ambiguity.

But it also implied that what business analysts do is “gather requirements.”

This myth is ubiquitous — and it is a myth.

We can find a plethora of online articles with titles like Complete Guide To The Requirements Gathering Process. Interestingly, many of these resources come from project management-focused blogs and publications, while authoritative business analysis sources refer to requirements elicitation and analysis.

Let’s just disband the myth once and for all.

You cannot “gather” requirements. They are not apples on a tree, ripe for picking.