I recently read an article by Laura Brandenburg, an experienced Business Analyst Consultant - which outlines a great idea she has on how to effectively use a structured stakeholder requests list for defining scope, fleshing out requirements - and ultimately to control scope creep! A good idea is worth sharing :-)

In summary, the idea looks like this:

1. Put together all competing stakeholder requests

• list out all the requirements you've received
• capture these in a simple excel spreadsheet

2. Then, evaluate each request

• determine if it is a business need
• determine if it is a requirement
• determine if it is a detailed or a high-level requirement

3. Then, begin to look at the requests as a whole

• determine if any requests relate to one another
• group requests together

4. Help stakeholders decide which items are in scope for the project and which are not in scope

• first, list out the business benefits for each item - consider organizational fit, cost of implementation, which systems are impacted ...
• identify items which have multiple requestors and consider these as potentially high priority items
• then, articulate this list as a brief category or a perhaps a full benefits statement, depending on the circumstance