Team Skill 2 Understanding User and Stakeholder Needs The Challenge of Requirements Elicitation (8)

Requirements Elicitation 3 Endemic Syndromes ▫“Yes but” syndrome  Users’ inability to experience the Software as they might a physical device ▫‘Undiscovered ruins’  The more you find, the more you know remain ▫Communication problems  Between Users and Developers

Requirements Elicitation Common user feedback styles ▫Like the design  Wow this is really cool … ▫Have some issues with the design  Yes, but…  Wouldn’t it be nice if…  Whatever happened to …  Reason to document removed features  Can we add a … or Can you make it do …  Possible scope creep

Requirements Elicitation We use screen mockups in Customer Steering committees to validate the concept and the design ▫Why might these screen mockups be better than actual prototypes? ▫Why not?

Requirements Elicitation Undiscovered Ruins ▫Can’t guarantee all requirements have been discovered ▫Its like asking the question:  How many undiscovered ruins are there? You have to gain agreement on features and system functionality ▫The team is then responsible for them

Requirements Elicitation “User and the Developer” Syndrome ▫Gap in communication ▫Technical vs Business ▫BA/SA are there to bridge the gap and facilitate communication

Requirements Elicitation Solutions: ▫Developer should learn and use the users’/domain terminology ▫Use many different requirement eliciting techniques ▫Try seeing the issues from each others angles ▫Hire Business Systems Analysts!!!

Requirements Elicitation Table 8-1