It is important to realize that with any elicitation activity, it is very likely that the business analyst will apply multiple elicitation techniques. It often depends on factors such as the constraints that might exist around cost and time, what information is available to the business analyst, the culture of the organization, and of course the planned ideal outcomes of the elicitation sessions themselves. It is also key for the business analyst to consider factors such as the needs of the stakeholders who are involved, their availability, and their geographical location.

Another aspect of being effective in preparation for the elicitation activities is to research and understand which elicitation techniques have been used successfully by the organization in the past, and if possible, to re-use those techniques again, providing they are suitable for the current situation and elicitation goals.

Example of selecting an elicitation technique

Let's consider an example of these considerations by looking back at our insurance project mentioned earlier. You know that the stakeholders you need to elicit requirements from are all used to participating in requirements workshops and that this technique is often utilized on projects in this environment. Because of this, you choose to plan for a series of requirements workshops instead of surveys or one-on-one requirements interviews. People are busy too, which makes it much more suitable to have a couple of short workshops during the quieter times of the insurance monthly processing cycles. You have done a lot of elicitation workshops before and therefore are personally also very familiar with the preparation you need to do as well as how to facilitate the workshop to get the best elicitation results. 

In this example, you are considering the culture, what people are used to, your own professional skills and abilities, and people's location and availability.