Rapid requirements workshops are structured events that are facilitated for getting all stakeholders related to a product or project together for the purpose of discovering, redefining priorities, reiterating and validating details and requirements. Most times, a professional facilitator is called upon to manage these workshop sessions. This professional may be without or within the organisation in question. The basis of this brainstorm process stems from the Joint Application Design. 

With this workshops, organisations working on a product get to achieve the following: 

• Reduction of product defects by about 20 – 50% 
• Reduction of the time needed to ship the product or project by about 5 – 15%.

These workshops helps the business analyst, product manager or project manager achieve: 

• In-depth insight into the needs of all relevant stakeholders of the product or project.
• Leveraging the insight of the stakeholders, as they are well-versed in their various areas of expertise.
• Fine-tuning of requirement and needs of each stakeholder within the shortest possible time.

There are several other activities that can come into the rapid requirement workshop process. These are;

• Whiteboard statements and presentation of product problems.
• Discovery of new product market-fit and requirements.
• Prototyping of product lifecycle as well as wire-framing of user experience.

During rapid requirement workshops, different things can happen. However, they all follow this basic template:

• At the beginning, ground rules are set.
• Participants in the workshop are split into teams, each team representing a mixture of specialties and interests. This is to achieve inclusion and balance.
• A general problem statement and mandate is given to each participant. This will make it easier for participants to understand what they are discussing. It also aids prioritisation.

As the facilitator, your work isn’t much. If you get things right, all you need to do include;

• Being observant: You need to listen to and monitor just what every stakeholder is doing. Body language, group dynamics, etc.
• Keeping track of time to ensure that all objectives are duly covered.

With a properly conducted rapid requirement workshop, you get to cut down massively on the time requirement to ship your product or project.