In BA Brew Episode 117, Jonathan Hunsley of AssistKD is joined by Craig Rollason and Corrine Thomas to explore why active listening is one of the most important skills for business analysts and change professionals - and how it directly improves the quality of requirements and stakeholder engagement.

They discuss how to listen with intent, avoid common listening traps, create the right environment for stakeholder conversations, and use techniques such as summarising, silence, open questions and reflection to improve understanding.

For business analysts, active listening is not just a soft skill. It helps build trust, uncover better information, reduce misunderstanding, improve requirements quality and strengthen stakeholder relationships.

Useful links:

AssistKD's practical Business Analysis training courses help your teams build stronger stakeholder relationships and gather better requirements. Explore the most relevant options below:

BCS Stakeholder Engagement > Develop the skills to identify, analyse and engage stakeholders effectively throughout the business change lifecycle.

BCS Requirements Engineering > Learn how to elicit, analyse and document requirements clearly — building on the listening and communication skills explored in this episode.

BCS Advanced Requirements Engineering > Take your requirements practice further with advanced techniques for complex stakeholder environments.

BCS Business Analysis Practice > Build the core competencies that underpin effective business analysis, including stakeholder engagement and investigation techniques.

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BA Brew Ep. 20: Resilience (feat. Corrine Thomas)] — Corrine's first appearance on the Brew, exploring how resilience supports BAs in challenging environments.