Requirement Elicitation Techniques

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Requirement Elicitation Techniques:

For Business Analyst to achieve success in project with a smooth flow always lies in gathering the requirements in the initial stage.

To document the requirements we can make use of Elicitation techniques

Below mentioned are Elicitation techniques:

1. BRAINSTROMING:

It is a technique where, individual or a group of people discuss on the new ideas and requirements so they can be analyzed and reviewed.

To perform a brainstorming we need to follow the below steps:

1. Prepare for brainstorming:

• Develop a clear definition on the topic or area of interest.
• Decide on who has to be a part of this session.
• Establish criteria on evaluation and rating the ideas.

2. Conduct brainstorming session

• Share the ideas without any evaluation or criticism.
• Note down all the ideas.
• Don’t limit on the ideas and encourage others and build upon their ideas as well.

3. Wrap-up the session

• Once the time limit is reached, based on the determined evaluation criteria, discuss and evaluate the ideas.
• List down the ideas and combine the appropriate ideas and remove the duplicate ones.
• Rate the ideas
• Distribute the final list of ideas to appropriate parties.

 

2. DOCUMENT ANALYSIS:

For any up gradation of an existing project document analysis is an important technique.

Has there will be documentation of the AS-IS project that is being working present.

These documents make it easy for the understanding of the existing system

1. Prepare for Document analysis:

• Evaluate which existing system and business documentation are relevant and appropriate to be studied.

2. Analyze the documents:

• Study and analyze the documents and material and identify the required business details.
• Document the details required and follow up for the questions and doubts with the Subject matter experts.

3. Post document analysis wrap up:

• Review and confirm the selected details with subject matter experts.
• Obtain answers to follow up questions.

It is one of the compulsory elicitation techniques for any project.

3. REVERSE ENGINEERING:

For any migration project reverse engineering is useful.

It is performed in a situation where the system has a little or outdated documentation, since it is necessary to understand what the system actually does, we need to perform reverse engineering and extract the requirements which are implemented for the software code.

There are 2 general categories to achieve the reverse engineering:

1. Black box reserve engineering: The system or unit is studied without examining the internal structure.
2. White box reverse engineering: The inner structures of the system or unit are studied in detail.
3. FOCUS GROUPS:

It is an interactive environment in which a group of 6-12 people interact and discuss about a specific product or an opportunity, which is guided along with a moderator.

There are two types of individuals:

1. Homogenous individuals: Individuals with similar perspectives will interact but the differing solutions are not discussed, so conduct separate sessions for different homogenous groups.
2. Heterogeneous individuals: Individuals with different perspectives will interact, but individuals may be self censored, resulting lower data collection.
3. OBSERVATION:

Observing the users can provide information about the existing system their processes and inputs and outputs.

There are 2 types of observations:

1. Passive/Invisible: BA observes the SME’s working through the business routines and don’t not post any questions. She/he understands the processes by observing the process till the end.
2. Active/Visible: BA observes the current processes and notes down all the observations and gain knowledge about how the current process works.
3. WORKSHOP:

The workshop compromises of 6-12 stakeholders/users working together to identify the requirements.

Steps to achieve the workshops are:

1. Prepare the requirements workshop.
2. Run the requirements workshop
3. Wrap-up the workshop done by the facilitator.
4. JAD (Joint Application Development):

This technique is an extension for the workshop technique, it deals with the collaboration between stakeholders and system analysts to identify the requirements in a concentrated and focused effort.

JAD process steps are mentioned below:

1. Define the sessions
2. Research the product and become more familiar about it
3. Prepare any visual aids or developing an agenda.
4. Conduct the sessions by giving equal importance to all the participants.
5. Draft the documents based on the discussion of the session.

JAD team includes of the critical stakeholders, skilled individuals, Business Process Owners, Client, systems designers, IT specialists, Data Admin, HR and BA’s

8. INTERVIEW:

As the name explains it is about interviewing a user or stakeholder and asking relevant questions and note down the responses.

9. PROTOTYPING:

A better way to visual the upcoming system by prototyping it, through mockups.

Screen mockups can be used to support the requirements gathering process by introducing them at the right time, sharing mockups in earlier stages is not a suggested option has it may lead to design changes or modifications and up gradations.

10. QUESTIONNAIRE:

It is an approach useful for getting opinions about a large number of stakeholders.

It is a feedback form with the ratings options with multiple choices, through which we can get information from and end user opinions as well.

 

By using the above elicitation techniques awe can gather the requirements and sort them in a better way.