Workbook
Make the Mission Yours
Role: Business Analyst
Use these activities to apply each principle to your current product, service, or project. These activities are a sample to get you started, not an exhaustive list. Adapt and expand them based on your team's context and needs. Capture your answers, share them with your team, and revisit them as you learn.
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Important: When Using AI Tools
When using AI-assisted activities, always double-check for accuracy and meaning each and every time. AI tools can help accelerate your work, but human judgment, validation, and critical thinking remain essential.
Review AI-generated content with your team, validate it against real user feedback and domain knowledge, and ensure it truly serves your mission and user outcomes before proceeding.
2) Break Down Silos
Clarify scope, rules, and data with all partners early.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 2) Break Down Silos section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Co-author scope with PM/Design/Eng to align boundaries, NFRs, and assumptions.
- ☐Run a 20-minute joint refinement to clarify business rules, data, and edge cases; document in the ticket.
- ☐Pair with QA to turn acceptance into testable scenarios and data sets for this story.
- ☐Sit with Dev/Designer to review flow and data contracts; capture decisions immediately.
- ☐Host a quick dependency check across upstream/downstream systems that this requirement touches.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐When AI generates requirements or acceptance criteria, have cross-functional team members (PM, design, engineering, QA) review them together to ensure they serve users and align with mission.
- ☐Use AI to help draft requirement documents or refinement notes, but ensure all roles contribute their perspectives during the actual refinement sessions.
- ☐Have AI analyze requirement patterns and handoff friction, then use those insights in cross-functional discussions to improve collaboration.
- ☐Use AI to help structure requirement collaboration sessions, but ensure human team members make decisions together about what to build and how it serves users.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Fewer rework/clarification cycles on the stories you refined jointly.
- ☐Acceptance criteria are testable and reflect shared decisions.
3) User Engagement
Ground requirements in observed user behavior and pain.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 3) User Engagement section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Shadow a user or support session tied to this requirement; list one requirement tweak you will make.
- ☐Collect three verbatim user quotes for this feature and add them to the backlog item.
- ☐Convert a top complaint into a concrete scenario and acceptance criterion.
- ☐Validate one key assumption with a user-facing role (support/sales/CSM) before finalizing acceptance.
- ☐Review analytics/logs for the affected journey and adjust requirements to reflect real behavior.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to analyze user feedback, support tickets, or usage data to identify patterns for requirements, but always validate AI insights through direct user engagement or observation.
- ☐Have AI generate questions for user interviews based on your requirement assumptions, then use those questions in real conversations with users to build genuine empathy.
- ☐Use AI to help summarize user research findings for requirement writing, but ensure you review the summaries and add your own observations from direct user interactions.
- ☐Have AI analyze user behavior patterns from analytics, then discuss those patterns with actual users to understand the "why" behind the behavior before writing requirements.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Requirements include user quotes or observed behaviors.
- ☐Assumptions are validated before build, reducing late changes.
4) Outcomes Over Outputs
Define measurable outcomes and plan to verify them.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 4) Outcomes Over Outputs section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Define a measurable business/user outcome for this feature and add it to the ticket.
- ☐Specify one leading indicator and how/when it will be measured before build starts.
- ☐After release, compare expected vs. actual and propose a follow-up change if needed.
- ☐Add acceptance that includes a data/telemetry hook to observe the outcome.
- ☐Create a short outcome readout linking this requirement to the metric it moved (or didn’t).
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐When AI generates requirements or feature descriptions, define outcome metrics upfront and measure whether AI-generated requirements achieve intended user outcomes, not just feature completion.
- ☐Use AI to help analyze requirement outcome data and identify patterns, but have human team members interpret what those patterns mean for users and the mission.
- ☐Have AI help draft outcome definitions and success criteria for requirements, but ensure the team validates them against real user needs and business goals before proceeding.
- ☐Use AI to track and report on requirement outcome metrics, but schedule human team reviews to discuss what the metrics mean and how to adjust requirements based on observed impact.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Each requirement has a stated outcome and measurement plan.
- ☐Post-release readouts drive scope adjustments based on data.
5) Domain Knowledge
Capture ecosystem, policy, and data constraints clearly.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 5) Domain Knowledge section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Map the process flow (front/back stage) showing systems/owners this requirement touches; highlight risks.
- ☐Identify policy/compliance constraints and add them explicitly to acceptance.
- ☐Confirm data definitions and sources with data/PM before finalizing the requirement.
- ☐Review a past incident/defect in this domain and add a guardrail or check to this story.
- ☐Meet a domain SME to validate edge cases and record decisions in the ticket.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to help summarize domain documentation, policy requirements, or data constraints for requirement writing, but validate AI-generated domain knowledge through direct engagement with domain experts.
- ☐Have AI generate questions about domain constraints or ecosystem relationships for your requirements, then use those questions in conversations with domain experts to build deep understanding.
- ☐Use AI to help draft process flows or ecosystem maps for requirements, but ensure team members review them with domain experts to verify accuracy and completeness.
- ☐Have AI analyze past requirements or domain-related issues, then discuss those insights with the team and domain experts to identify patterns and prevent similar problems.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Requirements list constraints, owners, and risks explicitly.
- ☐Data and policy assumptions are validated before build.
6) The Art of Storytelling
Explain requirements as stories of user and business value.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 6) The Art of Storytelling section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Write a one-page narrative: user, problem, business value, success signal for this feature.
- ☐Prepare two updates: one for execs/stakeholders (value, risk) and one for the squad (rules, edge cases).
- ☐Add a before/after vignette to the requirement to align design/eng/QA.
- ☐Include a user quote and a target metric in your summary to make it tangible.
- ☐Record a 60-second walkthrough of the requirement as a user story and share it with the team.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to help structure or draft requirement narratives and feature stories, but refine them with real user anecdotes, emotions, and personal observations from direct user interactions.
- ☐Have AI generate different versions of requirement explanations for different audiences (technical peers vs stakeholders), but ensure each version includes authentic human stories about real user impact.
- ☐Use AI to help summarize requirement work in reviews, but lead presentations with human stories about real users, using AI-generated summaries as supporting material.
- ☐Have AI help draft requirement documentation or feature descriptions, but always include real user quotes, data points, or anecdotes that connect your requirement work to human impact.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Stakeholders can retell the value story and success signals.
- ☐The squad can articulate rules and edge cases consistently.