Upon collecting information from the customer in detail, it's time to analyze and come up with your understanding of what they need. Document all the open questions you want to discuss further to get ready to lead the discussion about requirements. It's a must to understand the requirements in depth, and this can be easily achieved by engaging the customer and asking the right questions.

In the leading process, we expect the solution advisor and implementation partner/consultant to be on top of the following activities:

• Seeking the business process flow in detail and asking for a walkthrough.
• Getting the business rules defined at various decision points in the flow chart.
• Validating the completeness of requirements coverage, dependencies, and business rules.
• Understanding and documenting the pain areas and asking questions to clarify if you have any doubts.
• Never assume a requirement; always get it validated.
• Avoiding discussions about solutions in the requirements meetings; this will dilute the purpose of the requirements workshop.
• Avoiding spending time discussing the out-of-scope areas until the client has approved the change order.
• Project derailment happens when scope creeps are allowed.
• It is in the interest of the customer and external stakeholders of the project to keep the requirements/scope in check.
• Capturing the details of reporting, security, integration, and data migration, along with the other requirements discussions.
• Non-functional requirements play a key role in shaping project success.
• Avoid using Dynamics terminologies or acronyms (for example, posting profile, value models, and so on during CRP discussions).
• Using short forms early in the discussion activity should be avoided, as these may prolong or confuse the stakeholders' understanding; they may be unaware of such terminologies or acronyms.
• Once the requirements have been heard and you have led the discussion, it's time to strike a balance between business and project goals and constraints.

Upon listening to and leading the business conversations, it is time to get back to the drawing board to work out all the solution capabilities that are available as per the project's scope and then initiate the next activity of negotiating.