Business analysts stay informed of the level of the participation and performance from stakeholders to make sure of the following:

• The right subject-matter experts and other stakeholders are participating effectively.
• Stakeholder attitudes and interest levels are staying constant or improving.
• Elicitation results are confirmed in a timely manner.
• Agreements and commitments are maintained.

Another responsibility of the business analyst is to keep abreast of any risks of stakeholders being diverted away from the agreed business analysis work effort and raise these risks or issues with the relevant parties to avoid any delays in the delivery of the business analysis artifacts and approvals.

Example of monitoring stakeholder engagement:

In the real world, these types of risks are very common and in most cases become issues on a project. It happens because people are often expected to contribute time and effort to a project whilst also performing their daily jobs. It is therefore important for the business analyst to try their best to be prepared prior to engaging stakeholders who might be under other work pressures and minimize the time and effort you require from these types of stakeholders. Another key aspect is to plan ahead and communicate clearly to the stakeholders when you would expect to use their time for elicitation activities so that they can plan their diaries accordingly. 

Some mitigation strategies could be to identify these risks as early as possible and to address them by engaging the appropriate people to release the stakeholders from daily duties for a short period of time or where there are delayed approvals to ensure the approval processes are designed to be as easy and seamless as possible during the business analysis approach planning.