Hiring a consultant for generating your requirements: Part 2 of an external article

The previous article presented the DragonPoint.com article outlining 5 essential steps that you need to take when you have people hired to do requirements analysis for a project. Well, here is the link to the part 2 of this article that outlines tips 6 - 10 for the requirements gathering process (link). These next 5 tips are:
6. Make resources available: You need to budget for making sure that the requirements capturing team can access the current system and employees.
7. Include the employees who actually use the system: It is critical that the requirements gathering team get access to actual users who use the system, not only to the management people who drive the project.
8. Let your employees know their input is important: Make sure that the employees working with the requirements team understand that they need to help the team. At the same time, employees who are working with the team can provide an impression of the competence of the requirements team (are they asking the right questions, are they focused on the current processes, etc)
9. Remember why you hired the consultant: Do not take anything for granted. Explain your process in full detail.
10. Take ownership of the project: Hopefully not necessary to explain this. The project is important, and you need to make sure that it gets full importance.

Requirements gathering: DragonPoint Article (#1)

Requirements gathering for a software project (that you really need to expand or maintain your business) is a tough job; the toughness is because it is not an exact science. It depends on the type of project, depends on the nature of the people who will enumerate the requirements, and it depends on the capability of the team that does the actual requirements gathering. In such a scenario, it makes sense to read as much as possible about the requirements process so that one is aware of the best practices, about different use cases in which the process has worked, and so on.
A lot of companies that want to get hire consultants for this critical stage, and here is a great first part of an article at Dragon Point that talks about 5 steps (out of a total of 10) to become better at requirements gathering:

Any needs not identified during the requirements capture stage will result in scope creep. According to Suzie DeBusk, President of DragonPoint, the most effective way to minimize scope creep is to allocate 30% of the time spent on a project to requirements capture, design, and review. How does requirements capture reduce scope creep?
The requirements capture stage is similar to the planning phase of a construction project. If the client and architect do not communicate effectively, the blueprints will not meet the client's needs. And, depending on the size and scope of the discrepancies, this error in communication can result in costly rework as the project evolves.

As per the article, the following are the main points:
1. Be prepared for the initial consultation.
2. Remember your current system
3. Communicate.
4. Look for listening.
5. Listen for insightful questions that demonstrate you and your consultant share common goals.