🙂

Very glad to have you as part of the course Jenn – your contributions are awesome. We are very much of the same mind. You might like this post too.

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/the-road-to-respect-starts-with-solid-delivery/

This is a good discussion. While I do think this kind of terminology matters in how we’re seen as BAs — mostly what I think is that the best way to make that perception clear is to do the work (whatever it’s called) really well. Anyone who’s worked with a good BA knows that person did a lot more than collect documents and take notes! But I’m not sure there’s any way you can truly understand that process until you’ve seen in action — and certainly no single word is going to capture it.

I’m an English major and I love words, especially using the right one for the right job. I think “elicitation” is accurate for at least part of what we do, but I do agree that it’s not a common term, and won’t resonate for most people.

Although I do kind of like the “magic and trickery” bit, I have to admit…

Jake, you are such a word nerd! 🙂

Thanks for sharing your experience here Felicia. As BAs we definitely need to be prepared to speak to the terminology and explain it to our stakeholders. I’ll be adding a discussion of “gathering” vs “elicitation” back into the next session of the Essential Elicitation Skills course. We ended up glossing over it this time because there was so much good discussion in the first session. 🙂

If you want a really really fancy word… try “educe”. 🙂