Stakeholders have to approve the requirements and design for work to continue on the solution, in order for this to occur the stakeholders have to have an understanding of the requirements and design.
To ensure understanding the business analyst has to clearly communicate the requirements, designs and business analysis information.
The requirements and design approval may be formal or informal based on the approach used and the two types of approaches which may be used are :
1. Predictive approach: with this approach, the approvals are typically performed at the end of the phase or during change control meetings.
2. Adaptive approach: with this approach, the approvals are typically performed only during a solution meeting.
There are some elements that can help with the approve requirements task and they are:
a. Understand stakeholder roles: the approval process is defined in the plan business analysis governance and part of that involves understanding the stakeholders roles and authority levels.
The business analyst is responsible for obtaining the approvals and in order to do this, they have to know who has the approval authority and influence in the project.
b. Conflict and issue management: to get stakeholder support they have to reach a consensus. Ultimately stakeholders are regular people with different point of views and this can lead to conflicts.
The business analyst has to facilitate communication to avoid and resolve conflicts.
c. Gain consensus: in order to obtain approval from the stakeholders they have to understand and agree on the requirements and designs.
The business analysts facilitates approval by answering any questions or concerns that the stakeholders might have and if necessary gather any additional requirements.
d. Track and communicate approval: once the requirements have been approved the business analyst records the approval decisions.
It is necessary to keep accurate records including the audit history of the approval decisions made so that the stakeholders can keep track of which requirements and designs have been approved.