Here is a hard truth about Business Requirements Documents (BRDs): most BRDs are read exactly once. Usually, they are only read by the person who requested them, and they are almost never opened again by the people actually building the product.

If you are a Business Analyst, Product Manager, or Systems Analyst, your goal isn’t just to document requirements; it’s to communicate them effectively to the engineering team. In my latest video, I dive into how to structure a BRD for actual use rather than just filing it away.

Below is a breakdown of why traditional BRD creation is failing and how you can optimize your requirements for the people doing the work.

The Skim Factor: Why Developers Ignore Your BRD

Let’s be honest: everyone skims. Developers skim, product owners skim, and even your own stakeholders skim.

When an engineer picks up a ticket, they need immediate context. If your document requires a developer to hunt through paragraphs of text just to find the one technical requirement that matters to their specific ticket, you have already lost them.

Key takeaway for BRD creation: Stop writing for the archives. Write for the active sprint. Use clear hierarchies, bullet points, and exact mapping to user stories.

The AI Trap: Polished but Pointless

We have a newer problem in modern product development: generative AI.

Today, AI tools make it easier than ever to produce a long, polished-looking BRD that says almost nothing useful. It is tempting to type a prompt and let AI generate a 15-page document filled with corporate jargon. While this might look impressive to a non-technical stakeholder, a developer will instantly recognize it as fluff.

A successful BRD requires critical thinking, edge-case analysis, and precise logic that AI often glosses over in favor of sounding professional.

Quick Answers: Optimizing BRD Creation

To help you master BRD creation, here are answers to the most common questions about writing effective requirements.

What makes a good Business Requirements Document (BRD)?

A good BRD is highly scannable, directly actionable, and free of fluff. It prioritizes exact technical and business requirements over lengthy prose and allows developers to find what they need in seconds.

Why do developers hate reading BRDs?

Developers often dislike BRDs because they are historically dense, difficult to navigate, and force the reader to hunt for the specific requirements relevant to their current task.

Should I use AI to write my BRD?

You can use AI to outline or format your document, but relying on it to write the core content often results in a bloated, polished-looking document that lacks useful, specific details for the development team.

Want to see exactly how to fix your documentation?

Watch the full video above to see a real before-and-after comparison of a traditional BRD versus a developer-optimized BRD, so you can see the difference immediately.

In today’s fast-paced digital environment, the role of an Agile Business Analyst (BA) goes far beyond gathering requirements. BAs serve as the bridge between business needs and technical delivery, ensuring clarity around problems, stakeholders, value, change, context, and solutions aka the BA Core Concepts.

For large, complex organizations, analysts juggle multiple responsibilities across initiatives — from cross-platform projects to urgent “hot issue” fixes. Their days are filled with recurring team ceremonies like standups and backlog refinement, as well as deep-dive collaboration sessions to align stakeholders and clarify requirements.

AI is reshaping how these tasks are done. Instead of spending time taking and rewriting notes, BAs can use AI-powered transcription and summarization tools to stay engaged in discussions and generate structured insights afterward. In requirement modeling, AI helps analysts quickly structure user stories, explore scenarios, and identify edge cases. Visual modeling still requires human oversight, but tools like Mermaid syntax can accelerate diagram creation when paired with AI prompts.

When it comes to analysis work, AI offers major time savings. Analysts can prompt AI to scan through legacy documentation, extract key data relationships, or even generate technical scripts as I did when using GitHub Copilot to build a working Python script without being a developer.

For now, AI enhances, not replaces, the analyst. Success depends on giving AI quality input, validating its output, and applying human critical thinking to interpret results.

Ultimately, an Agile Business Analyst’s value remains in bringing clarity and AI can help handle the tedious parts, allowing analysts to focus on human insight, collaboration, and the strategy that drives real business outcomes.

Ambiguous requirements are part of the job for every business analyst. When an interviewer asks “How do you handle ambiguous requirements?”, they’re really asking: “How do you do your job?”

In this guide, we’ll break it down with an easy example, then look at a real-world case from business systems.

Start with Why

Imagine your boss says: “I want to go on a trip.”

That’s a vague requirement. The first step is to ask why.

• Is it to relax?
• To sightsee?
• To hike and camp?

Each reason leads to a completely different type of trip—and the same is true with business requirements. Understanding why sets the foundation for clarifying everything else.

Identify Stakeholders

Next, ask who’s involved.

• Who’s coming on the trip (friends = stakeholders)?
• Who else is impacted (kids needing childcare, someone covering at work, etc.)?

Stakeholders may include not only the requester but also everyone affected by the process or outcome.

Clarify Needs and Preferences

With stakeholders identified, drill into what they want.

• Do they want active days (hiking, jet skiing)?
• Relaxation (spa, beach)?
• Nightlife (clubs, karaoke)?

This is the equivalent of defining functional and non-functional requirements in a business project.

Organize and Validate

Once preferences are clear, group them into a structured plan:

• Day 1: Spa + dinner out
• Day 2: Beach activities
• Day 3: Sightseeing and nightlife

Then, validate with stakeholders: “Does this capture what you want?”

Only after confirming the requirements do you move on to solutions (booking a resort, cruise, etc.).

Translate to Business Analysis

In BA terms, you’re applying six key concepts:

• Context – Why does this matter?
• Problem – What’s driving the request?
• Need – What outcome is desired?
• Stakeholders – Who’s impacted?
• Value – What’s the benefit?
• Solution – What options meet the need?

By systematically questioning and clarifying, you turn ambiguity into actionable requirements.

Real-World Example: CRM + Contract Management Integration

In one project, the requirement was: “Integrate contract lifecycle management with Salesforce.”

At first glance, that’s vague. Here’s how to break it down:

1. Ask Why – In this case, the need was to ensure contracts were tied to closed opportunities, so future teams could easily find agreements without hunting across systems.
2. Identify Stakeholders – Salespeople, customer success teams, service fulfillment teams, and leadership.
3. Clarify Needs – Sales must not be slowed down; other teams need reliable access to contracts.
4. Design Within Constraints – Integration should enforce rules (e.g., an opportunity can’t close without a linked contract) while keeping sales efficient.
5. Validate – Ensure all stakeholders agree the solution fits their processes.

The vague requirement (“integrate systems”) became a clear set of functional rules and user needs.

Where AI Fits In

AI can help brainstorm questions to ask when you’re new to a domain. For example, ChatGPT can suggest common considerations for integrating systems.

But AI can’t replace the human role:

• Digging deeper when answers are political, not logical.
• Navigating organizational dynamics.
• Building trust with stakeholders.

The BA’s value lies in asking the right questions and interpreting answers in context.

Key Takeaway

To handle ambiguous requirements:

1. Focus on context, problem, need, stakeholders, value, and solution.
2. Ask questions until the ambiguity disappears.
3. Structure and validate requirements before jumping into solutions.

That’s how you turn “I want a trip” or “integrate this system” into clear, actionable requirements.

Remember that you are presenting the best version of yourself, focus on that instead of trying to anticipate what the interviewer wants to hear. Being clear on what you want to accomplish in the role and what things you are looking for versus trying to appease the interviewer will make you seem more resolute and sure of what you can accomplish, versus being a wishy-washy people pleaser, which doesn’t lead to success business analysis.