ba-workflow

name	ba-workflow
description	Business analysis workflow with 5 stages: discover, elicit, prioritize, validate, change-impact. Pass stage name as argument. Use for taking a personal project or feature from vague idea through validated implementation-ready requirements.

BA Workflow

Stage-based business analysis workflow. Single entry point for all BA work.

Usage

Invoke with a stage argument:

• discover — vague idea → vision & scope document
• elicit — vision → implementation-ready user stories with acceptance criteria
• prioritize — feature list → ranked MoSCoW priority matrix
• validate — requirements → validation report before implementation
• change-impact — proposed mid-project change → impact analysis & recommendation

How to Run

1. Read the args value passed when the skill was invoked. Extract the stage name (e.g. discover, elicit, prioritize, validate, change-impact).
2. If no stage was passed or the value is ambiguous, ask the user which stage they need. Match these triggers:
   • "I have an idea", "I want to build", "what should we build" → discover
   • "break this down", "create stories", "what are the requirements" → elicit
   • "what should we do first", "too many features", "help me prioritize" → prioritize
   • "are we ready to build", "review the requirements", "check if anything is missing" → validate
   • "what if we change", "can we add", "I want to modify" → change-impact
3. Read the corresponding stage file from stages/<stage>.md (relative to this SKILL.md location):
   • discover → stages/discover.md
   • elicit → stages/elicit.md
   • prioritize → stages/prioritize.md
   • validate → stages/validate.md
   • change-impact → stages/change-impact.md
4. Follow the instructions inside that stage file exactly. Each stage file is self-contained with its own checklist, process, principles, and red flags.

Recommended Workflow Order

Most personal projects flow through stages in this order:

discover → elicit → prioritize → validate → [implementation]
                                              ↓
                                       change-impact (when changes appear)

After validate passes, hand off to superpowers:brainstorming or superpowers:writing-plans for technical design.

Output Artifacts by Stage

Stage	Output
discover	docs/vision-and-scope.md
elicit	docs/requirements.md
prioritize	docs/priority-matrix.md (or update requirements.md)
validate	Validation report (inline or docs/validation-report.md)
change-impact	Impact analysis + updates to existing docs

Core Principles Across All Stages

• One question at a time — never dump questionnaires on the user
• Problems before solutions — understand WHY before WHAT
• Testable specifics — ban "fast", "easy", "user-friendly", "robust", "flexible"
• Trace everything — every story to a business objective, every rule to affected stories
• Document decisions — future you needs to know why

Hard Gates Between Stages

• No elicit without an approved vision document (or run discover first)
• No validate until requirements doc exists
• No implementation handoff until validate passes critical issues check
• No mid-project change implemented without change-impact analysis