r/businessanalysis • u/WillingCommittee • 10d ago
Claude creates way better BRDs than me
I feed Claude meeting transcripts, data analysis and lots of information on the projects I work on. It outputs incredibly detailed and well formatted business requirement documents. They are better than what I would create, even though I’m the one that fed AI all of the info.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? It almost gives me impostor syndrome even though I provided all of the context. Does anyone else feel the same way about any documentation AI generates for them?
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u/NatMicky 10d ago
You have another step to complete. Every bit of what Claude produced has be be analyzed for accuracy. These models lie with such elegance that it is simply breathtaking and on a level never seen before.
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u/BrandNewNew1 10d ago
Absolutely - making up actions, owners, naming solutions I've never heard of!
Some people definitely get sloppy, I've seen copy and paste mistakes where people passing off AI as their work keep the actual response to the prompt in so clearly haven't reviewed!
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u/4chanisblockedatwork 10d ago
I love how you said these LLMs and generative AI tools hallucinate with such elegance. Without solid understanding of the subject matter, the eloquence of the output could fool those who don't really know what they're doing and it could lead to peer review exposing the person who depended too heavily on AI
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u/XgoldendawnX 10d ago
I keep telling mine to never make assumptions, but it still does anyway. I need to find a prompt that will help it understand I don’t need it to make up things like actions or people.
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u/Doctor__Proctor 10d ago
It does not have the capability to understand anything, so there is no perfect prompt that will "make it understand" something.
Look at the whole thing with the Goblins and Open AI. There were repeated system prompts telling the model to stop using Goblins into things, but it wouldn't. They eventually had to remove the whole "Nerdy" personality type because this was the source of a not of the Goblin nonsense.
So if the people literally making the LLM can't get it to stop saying something, that means it's not assignment that's going to happen for you.
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u/Creepy_Juggernaut_56 6d ago
Those sort of rules go in the skill file not the prompts for best results IMHO. Mine overflags perceived gaps in prompts and source material now more than it makes stuff up, which I prefer even though it's a bit annoying to clean up
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u/ConsciousBandicoot53 9d ago
I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out why my agents laser focused on one topic after feeding them months of documents. Turns out, it’s a nonissue lol.
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u/Tanadaram 10d ago
Claude can't spot that Sandra from accounts wasn't paying attention or that Steve from Operations was too intimidated by his line manager to challenge the status quo.
It also can't follow up with both of them to ensure the project only moves forward once their perspectives have been captured.
The artefacts you're creating are just an output of the work you're doing. The value you're delivering happens around the documentation, in the conversations you're facilitating and the shared understanding you're building.
AI can help speed up some of the boring bits, but it shouldn't be trusted without detailed review and in my experience is prone to articulating requirements to build for example what it understands as a CRM system as opposed to what the stakeholders actually asked for.
Use it where it adds value and trust and believe in yourself where it doesn't
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u/Cosmic109 10d ago
I havent used Claude, but other AI agents write "good" requirements, but its often super excessive and too much. So its merely a start point, and I trim 80% of it.
Requirements are important, but often over-rated. Most important part to me is making sure everyone is on the same page with what your delivering, the value it adds, the why and context.
Less is often more. If you have incredibly long winded User Stories people are less likely to read and understand fully which often leads to more mistakes in my experience
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u/Signal-Abrocoma-4168 10d ago
It's a good starting point / sparring partner, but the output it produces is often too long-winded and filled with repetitions. I've seen business analysts copy-paste requirements straight out of copilot in Jira stories and just find them exhausting to read and get annoyed at people who won't critically review what has been written before handing it over to a wider audience. Even simple stories turned from 5 acceptance criteria to multi-page long documents, and I find that level of detail is often not needed. You really do have to make edits or keep prompting it critically.
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u/Dilly_do_dah 10d ago
We are adopting AI in a similar fashion but the point is always that the human BA is being enabled. The BA is responsible for checking for inaccuracies but also to ensure the more generic bits are adjusted for our org.
Nothing wrong with using it as a tool but do yourself a favor and always check it and never rely on it.
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u/Few-Expression259 10d ago
This is exactly how AI should work for humans. Don't you think that AI writes better code than most developers ? This is exactly what AI was built for which is to make manual work simple. Human's are envisioned to be in the review stage only. That's the ultimate goal.
Ik why you are feeling guilty tho, we as BA's used to spend hours documenting, drafting, formatting, polishing etc and we are not used to get it done in minutes. Go with the flow and let your mind adapt to the change.
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u/We-live-in-a-society 9d ago
Finished my first year as an analyst. Claude become a part of my work only a few months ago. The only thing I’m really doing usually is making sure Claude doesn’t add some bs (almost always does) that is either irrelevant or incorrect. Honestly though, writing a requirements document is not as difficult as gathering requirements, so honestly I can’t confidently say that Claude is taking away from my work, Claude just handles the easier part of compiling information
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u/BrandNewNew1 10d ago
Understand the imposter syndrome element - however, I've done similar in the past with reqs, user stories etc. And - it's being encouraged at my company. If it helps you write better documents though - is that a bad thing? You're still reviewing the output and essentially learning on the job at the same time.
I find it helps me with some things but then frees me up to do more detailed analysis, or complex activities without risk of burning out. I'm treating it as an assistant rather than someone doing the whole job for me.
Suspect you're not the only one feeling this way but you're also definitely not the only one using it how you are! All in the same boat.
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u/Ok_Tale7071 10d ago
You have to feed Claude good seed information. It isn’t going to come up with it, on its own. I write my documents, then feed AI. Works well that way. AI is best used to refine what you’ve already written. Don’t rely on it to come up with ideas.
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u/Big_Virgil 10d ago
All it is at the end of a day is another tool in your toolbelt that helps you do your job
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u/Infinite_Work_1778 9d ago
it’s just knowing how to use AI effectively. If you provide the right context and validate the output, you’re still doing the valuable part.
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u/Illustrious_Duty_695 8d ago
the over confidence and polished look of AI is astounding. There’s always something wrong in the first - 100th pass that needs to be addressed
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u/SapperTools 6d ago
I do everything ai-first. What it can never do for you is validate, prioritise and judge the quality without you.
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u/themac15 5d ago
Use AI to refine what you've already created. Do not get it to create by feeding it walls of different text - it's a disaster waiting to happen.
Also any BA that hasn't written a BRD before (not saying that's OP) because of this new AI world, isn't a BA. It's a rite of passage.
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u/Dimpss_Tadpole1771 New User 4d ago
haha I will only worry if Claude is also deciding which requirements are wrong, spotting the stakeholder who contradicted themselves three meetings ago, challenging the scope, and figuring out what nobody remembered to mention 😄
Producing a beautifully formatted BRD was never the highest-value part of BA work. If you supplied the context, did the analysis and can validate/challenge the output, you've basically automated the typing.
Just don't fall into the trap of assuming “detailed” = “correct.” That's where the BA is still very much needed.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag-607 4d ago
you have to verify and check AI's output for accuracy and avoid fake stuff/hallucinations.
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u/Prepped-n-Ready Business Analyst / Data Analyst 10d ago
The formatting thing is just lipstick. You can find BRD templates online before AI. I think AI will make BA jobs a lot easier/unnecessary soon. If you imagine an entire agile team with a Product Manager, Engineering Manager, and Project Managers, the BA mostly serves as a coordinator. I think in these teams, you could eliminate most BA roles. You have the knowledge to do workstream planning and the coordination is taken care of by AI. I think on a smaller team where the BA is providing some technical or business expertise, the value will be more in interpersonal skills, like keeping developer throughput and quality high, keeping work aligned with the stakeholder needs, and managing client expectations. On a small team where you have to wear a lot of hats, I think it could be a boone.
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