- What are the biggest challenges in your role? …
- What does success look like? …
- Who do you think is impacted (positive and negative) by the project and how? …
- What would happen if we don’t change the way things are done today?
Among all requirements elicitation techniques, interviews are arguably the most popular and frequently employed. They rank top in most business analysts’ elicitation techniques toolkit.
The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) defines interview as “a systematic approach for eliciting information from a person (or a group of people) in an informal or formal setting by asking questions and documenting the responses.”
Well-conducted interviews are those where stakeholders are free to express their needs, where the business analyst is free to probe and ask-follow up questions, and where both parties attain a shared understanding of the problem, other issues, and possible solutions.
While many business analysts confess to using interview as a cop-out technique in most circumstances, one should be aware of its advantages, as well as its limitations. Here we are to give you a repertoire of dos and don’ts to guide you into that next fruitful requirements elicitation using the interview technique:
Interviews Elicitation Technique
What is a Requirements Questionnaire?
A requirements questionnaire is a list of questions about the project requirements. Typically the questions are organized by feature (or business requirement or project objective). Essentially each high-level requirement from your scope document should have a list of questions to further refine your understanding.
Investing time in a requirements questionnaire will help ensure you not merely gather up requirements, but also that you discover undreamed of requirements.
And while it might seem like this would take a lot of time, the reality is that a well-thought-out questionnaire helps you run a more effective stakeholder meeting. One of our course participants reported eliminating several follow-up meetings by using our requirements questionnaire checklists and active listening techniques.
(By the way, we’ve pulled together a collection of feature-specific questions and made them available in our Requirements Discovery Checklist Pack. You can also download a sample checklist absolutely free of charge.)
What Requirements Questions Should I Ask?
When creating a requirements questionnaire, I work through each feature one at a time. I write down what I know about that feature (or what I assume to be true about that feature). Then I go about drafting questions. Most of the time, the questions evolve naturally as I think through the implications of a feature. But sometimes I need to spur my thinking a bit. Just like a good story, requirements will answer all the important questions. Think about the how, where, when, who, what, and why.
Here’s some generic questions you can use to spur your thinking.
Why questions are great wrap-up questions as they help confirm that the requirements you just elicited map back to a need you identified when you scoped the project.
(You’ll notice that we don’t typically ask a why question by using the word “why”. Among other reasons that’s because we don’t want to sound like a 2-year-0ld and annoying our stakeholders, even as we apply the 5 Whys Technique.)
What is Questionnaire on Requirements?
A questionnaire on requirements is a list of questions relating to project requirements. The questions are typically organized by feature (or business requirement or project objective). Essentially, each high-level requirement should have a list of questions from your scope document to further develop your understanding.
Investing time in a questionnaire on requirements will help ensure not only that you collect requirements, but also that you discover requirements that are undreamed of. So while it may sound like it will take a lot of time, the fact is that a well-thought-out questionnaire would help you run a more successful stakeholder meeting.
Here are some general questions that you can use to spur your thoughts on.
Interview Stakeholders Asking Open Ended Questions
Now that you understand what it means to “elicit and collaborate”, you need to select a business analysis technique that will help you obtain your business requirements from your stakeholders. The technique that I recommend using is the interview where you ask questions of the stakeholders to uncover their needs, identify problems, or discover opportunities.
I recommend that you conduct a structured interview with predefined open-ended questions that require the stakeholders to elicit dialog that results in uncovering key answers to your requirement questions. You can always ask additional questions as you conduct your interview. Having an initial list will keep your meeting on track as you seek to elicit and collaborate with your stakeholders.
FAQ
What is interview in elicitation techniques?
What is elicitation process with example?
What is the best elicitation techniques?
- Brainstorming. The requirements elicitation process begins with brainstorming. …
- Document Analysis. …
- Focus Group. …
- Interface Analysis. …
- Interviews. …
- Observation. …
- Prototyping. …
- Workshops.
How do you prepare for elicitation?
- Understand the Scope of Elicitation. …
- Select Elicitation Techniques. …
- Set Up Logistics. …
- Secure Supporting Material. …
- Prepare Stakeholders.
