How do you elicit requirements from stakeholders who do not know what they want?
Assesses fundamental understanding of Business Analysis conventions, runtime behavior, and memory/performance considerations.
Hiring managers look for precision, avoidance of ambiguous jargon, and ability to explain trade-offs under real production conditions.
When stakeholders cannot articulate what they want, it usually means the real problem is unclear, not that they have no needs.
I start with the problem and the outcome, not the solution. I ask about their day, what is frustrating, what takes too long and what happens when things go wrong. Concrete stories and examples reveal more than abstract questions.
Techniques I use include one to one interviews, facilitated workshops, observation or job shadowing, process mapping, document analysis and reviewing existing system reports. I ask "what would good look like?" and "how would you know it worked?"
I then play requirements back as scenarios and prototypes, because people recognise what they need when they see it far more easily than they can specify it.
I confirm understanding in writing and iterate. Silence and a quick nod often mean confusion, not agreement.
Candidate Response Strategy & Interview Tips
- Start with a concise one-sentence summary: Deliver a direct, confident answer first before expanding into nuances.
- Demonstrate real-world trade-offs: Discuss where this approach excels and when you would avoid it in production systems.
- Discuss complexity & edge cases: Proactively explain time/space complexity or boundary conditions (null values, scale limits).
- Prepare for interviewer follow-ups: Technical hiring panels frequently probe deeper into concurrency, backward compatibility, or alternative libraries.