IntermediateTECHNICAL
Walk me through how you typically translate high-level business needs into detailed functional and non-functional requirements or user stories. What specific techniques and templates do you use, and how do you ensure they’re understood by both business and technical teams?
Business Analyst
General

Sample Answer

My starting point is a light-weight problem statement and high-level objectives, usually captured in a one-page product canvas. From there, I run a discovery workshop with key users to map current vs future journeys and document pain points. That gives me enough to define epics and break them down into user stories using a consistent template: “As a…, I want…, so that…”, with clear acceptance criteria written in Gherkin-style when it helps QA. For non-functional needs, I use a simple checklist (performance, security, availability, usability, regulatory) and quantify targets, like “respond within 2 seconds for 95% of requests” or “99.5% monthly uptime”. I maintain everything in Jira and Confluence, linking stories to business objectives and mockups or flow diagrams. To keep everyone aligned, I do short walkthroughs with business in plain language, then separate grooming sessions with dev/QA to validate feasibility. That approach reduced clarification questions by roughly 40% and rework defects by about 25% on my last platform project.

Keywords

Use of product canvas and journey mapping to clarify high-level needsConsistent user story and acceptance criteria templatesStructured approach to non-functional requirements with measurable targetsSeparate but linked walkthroughs for business and technical audiences
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