Elicitation is more than interviewing. It's the art of drawing out what stakeholders know, what they assume, and — hardest of all — what they know but can't say. Choosing the right technique changes what you find.
Elicitation is the structured process of drawing requirements, constraints, and insights from stakeholders and other sources. A good BA has a toolkit of techniques and knows which one to reach for. Different techniques surface different kinds of knowledge — and some stakeholders respond better to one approach than another.
A senior executive with 20 minutes gives you an interview. A frontline team with a complex process gives you observation. A large user group gives you a survey. There's no universal answer.
No single technique tells the whole story. Combine an interview with document analysis and one observation session and you'll surface contradictions that any one method alone would miss.
Observation requires time on the floor. Workshops need room booking, agenda design, and getting six people in one place. Factor elicitation logistics into your project plan — not everyone is available on demand.
Each technique below has its place. The POPIT tags show which areas of a business change each technique tends to surface well. Tacit knowledge capture (explained below) is marked where it applies.
| Technique | What it is | Best for | Watch out for | Tacit? | POPIT areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured Interview | One-to-one conversation with a set list of questions asked in order. Good discipline, easy to compare answers across stakeholders. |
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Low | |
| Semi-structured Interview | Prepared topics and questions but you follow the conversation. The most common BA technique. Allows depth and surprise without losing focus. |
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Partial | |
| Workshop | Structured group session — usually 3–10 participants — with a BA or facilitator running an agenda. Ideal for surfacing conflict, building consensus, and covering ground fast. |
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Partial | |
| Document Analysis | Reading and interpreting existing documents: process maps, reports, policies, data extracts, previous project artefacts. Reveals what's already known, formal, and codified. |
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Low | |
| Observation / Shadowing | Watching work being done. Sit with the person, watch them do their job. Don't intervene — just observe. The single best technique for surfacing tacit knowledge (see below). |
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High ★ | |
| Survey / Questionnaire | Structured questions sent to a large group. Gives breadth and quantitative data but limited depth. Useful for confirming or sizing something you already suspect. |
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Low | |
| Focus Group | A facilitated group discussion — typically end users or customers — designed to explore attitudes, perceptions, and needs. Less structured than a workshop. |
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Partial | |
| Prototyping | Show stakeholders something tangible — a mock-up, a wireframe, a process diagram — and use their reactions to elicit requirements. People respond better to something concrete than to abstract questions. |
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Partial | |
| Brainstorming | Structured idea generation, usually in a group. Diverge first (all ideas welcome) then converge (prioritise and filter). Works best when combined with a clearer framework — SWOT, POPIT, or a problem statement as a starting point. |
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Low |
The philosopher Michael Polanyi put it simply: "We know more than we can tell." Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that lives in practice rather than documentation — the instincts, habits, and workarounds that experienced people build up over years but rarely articulate, because to them it's just how things work.
It's the handwritten spreadsheet on Dawn's desk that the official system can't replace. It's the three advisors who always handle the vulnerable customers because nobody ever said they should, they just do. It's the gap between what the process map says and what actually happens at 4pm on a Friday.
Tacit knowledge matters in change BA work because if you don't surface it, you build something that breaks it without knowing why. The new system replaces the handwritten notes with a digital field nobody fills in. The routing logic disappears because it was never documented. The transformation looks like a success on paper and fails on the floor.
The techniques that surface tacit knowledge: Observation and job shadowing are the primary tools. Think-aloud protocols (asking someone to narrate what they're doing while they do it) help. A second-pass semi-structured interview, after you've observed, often surfaces things the person would never have mentioned cold.
POPIT is a framework for making sure your discovery covers all the dimensions of a business change — not just the technology or the process. A change that looks straightforward from one angle often has a People or Organisation problem hiding underneath it. POPIT keeps you honest.
POPIT is most powerful as a gap check. After your discovery conversations, ask yourself: which areas do I have rich information in, and which are thin? A discovery that's heavy on Technology and light on People is a common failure mode — it produces a technically correct solution that nobody uses.