It is critical to identify all requirements for a project at the beginning. It may be tempting for a developer to look at a project problem statement and assume that they know what the stakeholders want exactly, but each situation is different. It is best to identify the product needs by asking the customer for specifics.
There are many ways to solicit information from users about a project. The techniques used will depend on the project size, the organization size, and the organization’s culture. At my employer, I produce software for the organization, so the customers are my co-workers. We use several techniques to gather requirements, including email, online chat, and meetings.
The main modes of elicitation are verbal, written, and online (Tsui et al., 2018). Verbal meetings are an excellent way to discuss the project interactively. Project discussions involve a lot of back-and-forths, and if it is handled via email, it may take a lot longer. Taking good notes during these meetings and capturing valuable information is critical. Written or online elicitation may be necessary for large projects or if it will work better with the organization’s culture. These forms of elicitation allow the requirements analyst to think through the questions carefully, and they should be followed up by a verbal meeting .
When eliciting information for a project, there are many categories of information to capture (Tsui et al., 2018).
Opportunity and Needs: What problem should the project solve?
Justification: How will the project pay off for the organization?
Scope: Which areas of functionality will the project solve?
Major Constraint: Any major requirement or constraint, such as a deadline.
Major Functionality: What are the most important functions the project will solve?
Success Factor: What must transpire for the project to be considered a success?
User Characteristics: What type(s) of users will be served? Internal, external, or both?
All this information must be captured and organized. The seven categories of information fit into the following six dimensions of project requirements (Tsui et al., 2018).
Individual Functionality: The specific functions needed by each group of users.
Business Flow: The ways the functionality works together to accomplish the organization’s goals
Data, Formats, and Information Needs: What information will be coming into and out of the system?
User Interfaces: How will the users interact with the system?
Other Constraints: How will the project be constrained for performance, reliability, and security?
Systems with Other Interfaces: What other systems will interface with the new system, and what are the details of the interfaces?
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