Requirements Elicitation

The critical first step in defining a new capability is to determine who the stakeholders are and what capability they need. Although workshops seem to be the most popular way of discovering this information, Codarra also considers other methods, such as interviews, questionnaires and observation. The most appropriate technique(s) are then applied.

The critical first step in defining a new capability is to determine who the stakeholders are and what capability they need. Although workshops seem to be the most popular way of discovering this information, Codarra also considers other methods, such as interviews, questionnaires and observation. The most appropriate technique(s) are then applied.

Requirements elicitation is helped by some professional domain knowledge, but it also requires a range of inter-personal skills and analysis techniques. Inevitably, stakeholders approach their requirements from a range of perspectives, so capturing the requirements of each stakeholder group within a common framework is an essential first step. Codarra favours an architecture-based approach for creating that framework.

Architectural descriptions can be graphical or tabular and help to capture:

• business processes,
• the various entities who perform those processes,
• the products or data produced by those entities, and
• the connections required to exchange those products.

This approach to requirements elicitation quickly generates capability descriptions that most stakeholders can see, consider and comment on in a timely manner.