I is for Interview

Stakeholder interviews are the first step in the ICECAP process

"Starting is half finished," as the saying goes. However, beginning a project correctly is crucial for its success, and BDD is no exception. Here is a guide for conducting a Stakeholder Interview as part of The Discipline’s ICECAP process.

The goal of interviewing stakeholders is to understand the problem from their perspective and inform the next steps in the process: Codifying the Specs. This workflow relies significantly on modern business tools, many of which are based on AI.

Start with the end in mind

"Thank you for meeting with me. Today, we will discuss the primary scenarios we aim to address through this project. I will be recording the meeting to review it in detail later and develop a comprehensive plan. If you consent to having this meeting recorded and summarized, we can proceed. [start AI summary and recording tools].

Hello, my name is Mark, and I am a Project Manager on The Project. Could you please provide your name and explain your job function in the context of The Project? [wait for response]

Thank you. Considering The Problem, what is the most common or significant work scenario you would like to address by creating The Project?"

This should initiate a productive conversation about the importance of The Problem and how The Project can resolve it, while simultaneously generating a detailed AI summary of the discussion as well as a comprehensive video record.

Feed the Machine

After your interview, copy the AI meeting summary into a new research document. Use a tool to transcribe the meeting; Slack offers free transcription when you upload a video. Add this transcription to the same document as the summary. Ensure the document is accessible to your AI tool. For instance, I upload mine to Office using Copilot. ChatGPT and other AI tools allow document uploading for paid tiers. The key feature of these tools is their ability to analyze documents.

Personal Connection

Stakeholder interviews are equally focused on building rapport and gathering requirements. Aim to maintain a conversational tone rather than an interrogative one. Your objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the stakeholder's perspective. Utilizing AI tools for later analysis allows you to be present during the meeting, rather than concentrating on taking notes. Recording the conversation enables you to include useful phrases that will be identified by AI subsequently. For instance, if the stakeholder mentions that something is important, you can reaffirm this by saying, “As a [role], you need to [perform an action] to [accomplish a goal].” Such comments can be verified by the stakeholder and assist in generating precise specifications for the next step of the ICECAP process: Codifying the Specs.