A business analyst needs to understand one simple thing: CRM never starts with the system. It starts with expectations. And almost always with a conflict between those expectations.
Gathering requirements and working with user stories isn’t about ‘what the system should do’. It’s about who it should work for and what reality it changes.
CRM for small businesses: speed is more important than perfection
In small businesses, everything is simple, and yet at the same time, it is the most complicated.
There are no complex organisational structures here. Often, the owner is simultaneously the CEO, the sales manager, and the main user of the future system.
Their requirement sounds something like this:
‘I want to see everything and not miss a thing.’
If we translate this into a user story, a poor version looks like this:
As the owner, I want a CRM to control the business.
This isn’t a user story; it’s a concern.
A better way to phrase it is:
As the owner, I want to see all active deals on a single screen so that I can understand where we’re losing money.
In a small business, the roles on a project are minimal:
Owner = Product Owner
1–2 key staff members = process experts
Integrator = architect + analyst + methodologist
The main risk here is the temptation to automate chaos.
The analyst’s task is not to collect all the requests, but to filter them through the following questions:
- Does this create value?
- Does this save time?
- Does this affect the bottom line?
Because in small business, CRM should not be ‘correct’, but alive.
Medium-sized business: politics begins
In medium-sized businesses, CRM is no longer about control, but about coordination.
Roles emerge:
- The owner – expects transparency
- The commercial director – expects manageability
- Department heads – expect influence
- Users – expect not to be tormented
And here the first real conflict arises:
The owner wants analytics
Senior management — control
Managers — flexibility
Users — scalability
It is at this point that the user story ceases to be a technical tool and becomes a negotiating tool.
A poorly worded requirement:
The system must record all the manager’s actions.
This sounds like a lack of trust.
Successful:
As a department head, I want to see the history of interactions with the client so that I can help the manager close deals.
A difference in intent.
Big business: the battle for the model of reality
In big business, CRM is no longer just a tool. It is a political system.
Here we see:
- Strategic stakeholders
- Operational process owners
- IT department
- End users
- Control services
And each of them wants something different:
- Business wants speed
- IT wants stability
- Control wants regulation
- The user wants a minimum of clicks
A failed requirement at this level looks like this:
It is necessary to implement the approval of all commercial proposals.
This is a symptom of fear.
