Hello,

I am a relatively new B.A., working on a project.  Currently, we have a list of Change Requests that have been put forth by the business, that we need to manage in order to determine what can be included in the next release.

Obviously, the business would like all the change requests to be implemented; the development team wants to minimize the changes.  I am fairly new, but from my perspective I see my responsibility as the B.A. primarily to understand the value of each change, assess the costs/effort to implement, and help prioritize the changes for the PM/steering committee to ultimately review and approve.  The big challenge I see is how to accommodate the business' needs while reducing impact on the current design.

So, my question to the B.A.s on this forum: what experience do you have in Change Request management?  Would you offer any tweaks to my current approach?  What techniques/questions have served you well in negotiating with the business on changes?

Here's an article which might be of help: 

"Change Requests for Software Business Analysts"

Adrian