Silent Steps: How to Stop Hidden Requirements from Stalling Your Project

When my grandmother first taught me to drive, she carefully explained the shifts, gears, and pedals before handing me the keys. I climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key… and nothing happened. No engine roar. My grandma leaned in, puzzled, and started troubleshooting until she suddenly realized what was missing: she’d forgotten to mention that I needed to press the brake while turning the key.

That tiny, “obvious” step was second nature to her, but completely invisible to me. And that’s exactly how unspoken requirements sneak into process improvement projects. Stakeholders often skip over critical steps because they’re so ingrained in their daily work, they don’t even think to say them out loud. The result? Those missing details surface late in the project—often during user acceptance testing—when they’re expensive and frustrating to fix.

In this post, I’ll share practical ways to catch those hidden, assumed requirements early so your projects run smoother, surprises are minimized, and you’re not left turning the key with nothing happening.

Why Requirements Gathering Fails

On paper, requirements gathering sounds straightforward: you talk to stakeholders, capture their needs, and document them. Easy, right? In reality, it’s one of the most common points of failure in a process improvement project. The reason is simple—people don’t always say everything you need to know.

Stakeholders often describe the symptoms they see, not the full process behind them. They also skip over steps that feel “obvious” to them but aren’t obvious to anyone else—those silent habits that live in muscle memory. And sometimes, they forget entirely about the rare or exception scenarios that might derail your shiny new process the moment they occur.

The result? You walk away from your initial conversations feeling confident, only to hit a wall weeks later when you discover a key detail you never knew to ask about. By then, the project plan is set, and adjusting it can be costly in both time and goodwill.

Treat is as a Conversation, Not a Checklist

One of the fastest ways to miss requirements is to treat your stakeholder interviews like a form you just need to get through. Yes, structured questions are helpful—but if you’re only reading down a list and jotting down answers, you’ll capture what people say, not necessarily what they mean.

I’ve learned to treat requirements gathering as an open‑ended conversation. Start with broad, “tell me about…” questions and let the stakeholder walk you through their process in their own words. Ask follow‑up questions that dig deeper, and don’t be afraid to say, “Walk me through exactly what you do when…” or “What happens if…” Those prompts tend to surface details that would never make it onto a standard checklist.

The goal isn’t just to collect facts—it’s to understand the context, motivations, and constraints behind them. The more your stakeholder feels like they’re explaining to a curious colleague instead of answering an interrogation, the more likely they are to reveal the quiet, assumed steps that could make or break your project.

Use Scenarios & "Day in the Life" Walkthroughs

Sometimes the best way to understand a process is to live it vicariously. One of the most useful techniques I’ve learned is asking stakeholders to walk me through a typical day—or a specific scenario—step by step. Not just what they do, but how they do it, when, and why.

This kind of narrative approach helps uncover details that are hard to articulate in abstract. You’ll often hear things like, “Oh, and then I usually double-check this in another system,” or, “I copy this over from an old email—it’s just faster that way.” Those are the moments where hidden work, exceptions, and manual steps reveal themselves. They’re gold.

You can also ask about edge cases: “What happens if someone skips this step?” or “What do you do when X goes wrong?” People often build informal workarounds that never get documented—but those details can make or break your solution. A scenario‑based walkthrough gives you a fuller picture of the process, not just the idealized version people think they follow.

Validate & Play it Back

Once you’ve gathered what you think is the full picture, don’t just file your notes away and start designing—play it back to the people who gave you the information. Restating the process in your own words is a quick way to confirm you’ve captured the right steps and haven’t misunderstood anything.

I’ll often create a simple process map, flowchart, or outline and walk stakeholders through it: “Here’s how I understand it—does this match what you do?” This not only surfaces missing details but also sparks corrections and clarifications. I like to add one extra question that works surprisingly well: “What would break if we left this out?” It forces people to think about dependencies and highlight steps that are more critical than they might seem at first glance.

Requirements gathering is not a one‑and‑done event. Processes change, priorities shift, and even the best initial documentation can go stale quickly. Keep the conversation open and be ready to revisit your understanding throughout the project. It’s much cheaper to find a gap on paper than during implementation.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to slip into habits that undermine your requirements gathering. Here are a few traps I’ve fallen into (and learned to avoid):

• Relying on a single perspective – One person rarely has the full picture. Talk to multiple stakeholders to uncover variations and exceptions.

• Assuming existing documentation is accurate – Process docs are often outdated or idealized. Validate with real‑world practice.

• Overlooking “tribal knowledge” – Informal steps and shortcuts are often critical to how work actually gets done.

• Not revisiting requirements mid‑project – Things change. Check in regularly to confirm your initial understanding still holds.

• Skipping edge cases – Happy path scenarios are easy; it’s the “what‑ifs” that usually break your solution.

  
  

Avoiding these pitfalls isn’t about being perfect—it’s about staying curious, asking follow‑up questions, and keeping your ears open for the things people don’t think to say.

Remember to Press the Brakes

That day with my grandma in the driver’s seat taught me more than how to start a car—it taught me the “brake pedal rule.” There are always steps that are obvious to one person but invisible to another, and if you don’t uncover them early, you risk stalling the whole process.

In process improvement, those silent steps are the unspoken requirements that don’t make it onto checklists, project plans, or kickoff notes. They’re hidden in habits, muscle memory, and exceptions no one thinks to mention—until it’s too late. The more curious you are, the more you walk through real scenarios, and the more you validate and play things back, the better your chances of catching them before they derail your work.

Good requirements gathering isn’t just about asking questions—it’s about asking the right questions, in the right way, until even the brake pedal moments come to light.