Putting it together

Let's take a real scenario: a senior stakeholder, domain expert, but with a „difficult” reputation. We'll decode what's happening through SCARF lens — and build an interaction plan.

SCARF diagnosis

• Status: product team is new, perceived as „above” Operations. Mihai feels his place is shrinking.
• Certainty: the product roadmap is changing processes he built over years.
• Autonomy: scope decisions are made without him.
• Relatedness: product team uses new jargon (epics, OKRs, etc.) — he's an outsider.
• Fairness: sees more junior colleagues getting CEO time. „Why them and not me?”

Your plan (as a new BA)

1. 1-1 before any joint meeting. „I'm new, I want to learn from someone who knows Operations. Got 30 min this week?” → Status + Relatedness.
2. Ask what frustrates him. „What frustrates you most in how we work with Operations now?” → Autonomy (controls the agenda).
3. Include him in scope decisions. „Before locking Q3, I want your perspective on X. Can I drop by?” → Certainty + Status.
4. Publicly acknowledge his contributions. At reviews: „Mihai's insight on X saved us 2 sprints”. → Status + Fairness.
5. Establish transparent criteria. „Here's how we prioritize: framework Y. Here's X's scoring.” → Fairness.