5 Common Challenges in Requirement Elicitation

A seasoned product manager was overseeing the development of adding a custom dashboard feature for a high-profile client. In the initial meetings, the client shared some high-level requirements such as the key metrics to display and examples for the dashboard’s look and feel.

The product manager pulled in the tech lead, and their team began development. However, they soon realised that the requirements were vague and incomplete, leading to multiple back and forths with the client.

Every time a new requirement surfaced, the team had to rework their efforts, compromising the overall quality of the final product. The ambiguous requirements also affected the project’s budget. The initial cost estimates were based on incomplete information, leading to budget overruns and financial strain.

Frustration grew on both sides. While the client was not happy with the delay and the increased budget, the tech team was overwhelmed by the constant changes. The product manager was caught in the middle, trying to bridge the communication gap and ensure everyone was aligned.

Thus, time, quality, and budget all take a hit when product managers, tech teams, and business stakeholders are not on the same page. Its effects are seen throughout the project development cycle and even affect end users. For instance, poor requirements elicitation can lead to a misinterpretation of user needs, leading to users receiving a product that does not match their expectations.

In this article, we will discuss the common challenges encountered in the requirements elicitation phase, and how CAW came up with an effective framework to effectively address them.

Ineffective communication between business stakeholders, product managers, and tech teams remains one of the primary challenges in requirement elicitation. When communication channels are weak or unclear:

Project Scope Is Misunderstood: Unclear communication leads to differing interpretations of scope, causing teams to misalign on features, goals, and deliverables.

Critical Details Are Overlooked: Important requirements can slip through the cracks, increasing the likelihood of rework and budget overruns.

Product Releases Are Delayed: Frequent revisions push the project timeline and affect the time-to-market.

Ambiguity in requirements often arises when stakeholders provide vague or high-level descriptions without sufficient detail. Without detailed specifications, development teams resort to making assumptions that may not align with the intended outcome. Apart from multiple revision cycles, stretched budget, and delayed project timelines, ambiguous requirements can lead to:

Compromised Product Quality: Requirement misinterpretation leads to implementations that do not meet user expectations. Critical features are either missed or inadequately developed, compromising the product’s functionality and performance.

Stakeholder Dissatisfaction: Stakeholders may find that the delivered product does not align with their vision or expectations, leading to dissatisfaction. As a result, maintaining positive relationships can become challenging, which can impact future collaborations or projects.

Technical Debt Accumulation: Ambiguity in requirements can lead to technical debt. This is a situation where development teams make short-term compromises to deliver a product on time or within budget. Technical debt not only increases maintenance costs but also complicates future developments such as adding new features or enhancements.

When business objectives are not well-defined, it becomes challenging for development teams to align technical solutions with organisational goals. This misalignment can result in:

Confusion About Project Priorities: With poorly defined business objectives, deciding task priorities turns into guesswork rather than a strategic approach. This can result in teams focusing on low-impact tasks or misallocating resources, while critical issues are sidelined.

Difficulty Measuring Project Success: Vague objectives mean that the criteria to assess product performance are also lacking. This makes it hard to determine if a project has truly delivered the intended value or achieved desired outcomes. The lack of clarity also masks the areas that need improvement.

Missed Market Opportunities: Business objectives not being well-defined can lead to teams overlooking key market trends or failing to capitalise on competitive advantages. Clear goals help teams stay aligned with market trends, allowing timely responses to opportunities.

Undocumented or poorly documented processes can create confusion and inconsistency throughout the project development cycle. When processes aren’t properly documented:

Knowledge Transfer Becomes Difficult: Critical information often resides with certain team members. This creates single points of failure, where the team’s reliance on these individuals poses significant risks. If key personnel are unavailable for any reason, their unique insights and expertise are lost. This loss can lead to project delays, mistakes, and a lack of continuity, as remaining team members may struggle to fill the gap without adequate documentation or guidance.

Process Gaps Go Unnoticed: Without proper documentation, teams may not recognise areas that need improvement or find it difficult to identify bottlenecks. This can result in recurring issues that affect productivity and project outcomes, as teams unknowingly continue to operate with suboptimal practices.

Training New Team Members Takes Longer: Without clear guidelines or resources, new hires may require more time to become familiar with workflows and expectations. This extended training period can lead to decreased productivity and can overburden existing team members who must provide additional support, ultimately affecting project timelines.

While it is natural for stakeholders to identify additional needs as they gain a better understanding of the project, unplanned changes can significantly disrupt project timelines and development flow. When requirements are added mid-development:

Scope Creep Occurs: The project’s scope expands beyond its original boundaries. Adding unplanned features can lead to prolonged development timelines and increased costs. The overall product quality can also be impacted as resources are diverted to meet new demands.

Project Milestones Are Affected: Shifting focus away from initially planned tasks can lead to missed milestones as original timelines become unrealistic. This not only impacts the completion date but can also interfere with dependent projects or scheduled launches, creating a ripple effect across the project roadmap.

Testing Cycles Are Disrupted: When changes occur late in the development process, teams must revisit testing cycles to ensure that the new features are fully validated to maintain quality. These frequent changes cause delays and increase the risk of unanticipated bugs, potentially compromising product stability.

Missing or incomplete requirements can lead to multiple rounds of elicitation meetings, frequent revisions, and significant strain on time, quality, and budget.

To address these challenges and deliver quality products while maintaining momentum, CAW has developed a W.E.T (Workflow, Entities, and Task) framework. In our next article, we’ll discuss this framework in detail and see how it benefits tech teams, product managers, stakeholders, and ultimately, end users.