Requirement Elicitation Techniques

BA Approach strategy means, the steps BA will be taking to complete a project from initial phase to final phase. a. What Elicitation Techniques to apply? Requirement Elicitation: It means digging out the information from the stakeholders. i) Brainstorming: It’s like generating the ideas/solutions to the requirements. It can be conducted individually or in group wise. To be effective it’s better to conduct group wise of 8 -12 people, so that lot of ideas can be generated and possible solutions can be given for the problems. ii) Document Analysis: To analyse the existing project documents of the client company such as As-Is document, User Manuals to understand how the system is performing so that it can give ideas for new system requirements. iii) Reverse Engineering: If the existing system documents of the client is outdated, we can know the current process of the system through the codes they have implemented. iv) Observation: Observing the users like how the work is being done might provide few requirements. This technique is used when users are unable to explain their requirements properly for a new system or what they are currently doing. It can also be used to improve the process. v) Workshops: It comprises of 6-10 users/stakeholders who are working together to identify the requirements. It will be for certain duration. A workshop may be used to discover, define and prioritize and reach closure on the requirements. vi) Joint Application Development Workshop (JAD): It involves collaboration between stakeholders & system analysts to identify the requirements. This technique produces high quality of information in short period of time. This technique provides to explore multiple point of views regarding a topic. vii) Interviews: An interview is a systematic approach to elicit information from a person or group of people in formal or in an informal way. This technique provides to clarify or explore the topics in more detailed way. viii) Prototyping: Prototyping can support the requirement process if it’s introduced at the right time but if it introduces early it becomes problematic. Stakeholders will try to become UI designers and instead of explaining the requirements, they will prioritize in telling they need dropdowns etc. Wireframe: It’s a high level sketch which gives the idea about the new product functionality. Mockups: It provides a look and feel for the users. It’s a static and gives a visual representation of a design. Prototyping: A prototype goes in detail creating an interactive simulation that users can test out and provide feedback on. ix) Questionnaire: It can be useful technique when stakeholders are located geographically remote or if they contribution is minor to the requirements. x) Focus Groups: A focus group means to elicit ideas about specific product/service/opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants can share the preferences/impressions by moderator. It has 6-12 attendees. If many people need to participate it may be necessary to run more than one focus group. The topic of the focus group will be influenced by who should be recruited. xi) Use Case Specification Document: Each Use Case is supported by one document called use case specification or use case description document. The sub-headings in this document are important as we ask these questions to the client. It is also called as Requirements document or Requirements Template.