Requirements Elicitation Techniques: Analyzing the Gap between Technology Availability and Technology Use

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThe current state of building information systems is terrible. At least $185 billion is wasted on development projects that fail, often because the software does not satisfy users' needs (Standish Group, 1995). Although there are many possible reasons for these failures, problems related to ABSTRACT Many software development projects fail because the resulting software does not satisfy user needs. The process of determining user needs is generally termed requirements elicitation. Although there are many possible reasons for software failures, if analysts practiced more effective requirements elicitation, fewer projects would fail. Although hundreds of requirements elicitation techniques have been developed by researchers to aid analysts in effectively determining user needs, few have ever been used by practitioners. This paper reports on research to study the nature of the gap between requirements elicitation technique availability and use, identifies the major factors that impact the transfer of elicitation techniques to practice, and explores how to improve the transfer of elicitation techniques from research to practice. understanding users' needs are consistently identified as among the most important (Standish Group, 1999). Requirements elicitation techniques are the means by which systems analysts determine the problems, opportunities, and needs of the customers, so that systems development personnel can construct systems that actually resolve those problems, leverage those opportunities, and/or address customers' needs. In response to a less-than-acceptable rate of failure of systems, hundreds of elicitation techniques have been created by researchers. But the majority of these techniques are rarely, if ever, used by practitioners. Solutions appear to be available, yet we continuously fail to make use of them. Given this gap between elicitation technique technology availability and use, barriers to the successful transfer of requirements elicitation techniques from researchers to practitioners appear to exist.Problems with the transfer of new requirements elicitation techniques to practice impact more than the software development industry. First, information technology, and more specifically the information systems software that supports an organization' s operations, is critical to the success of the vast majority of organizations today. Therefore, any problem that impacts the successful development of those systems impacts all organizations. Second, information technology (e.g., knowledge management systems) is viewed as a key enabler of technology transfer and information dissemination. Therefore, the successful development of information systems potentially impacts the successful transfer of many other technologies. Third, continuous process improvement, and the transfer of new processes and knowledge required to support that improvement, is a necessity in today' s rapidly changing and competitive environment. Therefore, problems with the transfer of processes such as new requirements elic...

The information society: permanent crisis through the (dis)ordering of networks

“…Normally, installations and upgrades disrupt work and organization. Hickey et al (2003) lament that, although there are a large number of ways to gather user requirements, nobody seems to follow them. The software writers often do their job abstractly without paying attention to the problems that workers need to solve.…”

Una evaluación a los métodos para elicitar requisitos de seguridad

“…En el futuro se podrá tener una mejor comprensión de cómo los aspectos únicos de la elicitación de requisitos de seguridad direccionan la selección de un método. Se ha presentado algunos trabajos [1][2][3] en elicitación de requisitos en general que podrían considerarse para elaborar una lista como la que aquí se propone, lo mismo que para llevar a cabo el proceso de selección [2]. [4,5] Un caso de uso generalmente describe el comportamiento del sistema que el cliente desea [5].…”

Process research in requirements elicitation

“…Despite more than four decades of research on requirements elicitation approaches, relatively few such techniques have been widely adopted in practice [12]. Although empirical research is starting to be more used, most studies are laboratory experiments with students focusing on the effects of requirements elicitation techniques on the final product of the elicitation process [4].…”