Engaging stakeholders to identify and validate business requirements is the best way to improve the success rate of future IT initiatives. Stakeholders are the individuals or groups who have an interest or influence in the IT initiatives, such as business users, customers, managers, sponsors, etc. Engaging stakeholders can help:

Understand the needs, expectations, and priorities of the stakeholders, and ensure that they are aligned with the business objectives and strategy

Define and document the business requirements that specify what the IT initiatives should deliver in terms of functionality, quality, performance, and value

Validate and verify that the business requirements are clear, complete, consistent, feasible, and testable

Communicate and manage any changes or issues that may affect the business requirements or the IT initiatives

Engaging stakeholders to identify and validate business requirements can help avoid missing key functionality in the corporate applications, and ensure that they meet the stakeholder’s needs and expectations. This can also reduce the reliance on spreadsheets and databases as alternative software solutions, and increase the user satisfaction and adoption of the enterprise applications.

The other options are not the best way to improve the success rate of future IT initiatives. Engaging the business user community in acceptance testing of acquired applications is a good practice, but it is not sufficient to ensure that the applications have the key functionality that meets the business requirements. Acceptance testing is done at the end of the IT initiative lifecycle, after the applications have been developed or acquired. If the business requirements were not properly identified and validated at the beginning of the IT initiative lifecycle, acceptance testing may reveal significant gaps or defects that may be costly or difficult to fix. Establishing a process for risk and value management is a useful technique, but it does not directly address the issue of missing key functionality in the corporate applications. Risk and value management involves identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and treating the risks and benefits associated with IT initiatives. However, without clear and valid business requirements, risk and value management may not be effective or accurate. Prohibiting the use of non-approved alternate software solutions is a restrictive measure, but it does not solve the problem of missing key functionality in the corporate applications. Prohibiting the use of spreadsheets and databases may force the users to use the enterprise applications, but it may also create dissatisfaction, frustration, or resistance among them. Moreover, it may prevent them from performing their tasks efficiently or effectively if the enterprise applications do not meet their needs.

For more information on engaging stakeholders to identify and validate business requirements, you can refer to these web sources:

Stakeholder Engagement - ISACA

Business Requirements - ISACA

Requirements Validation - ISACA