Team Skill 2 - Understanding User and Stakeholder Needs (Chapters 8-13 of the requirements text)

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Team Skill 2 -Understanding User and Stakeholder
Needs(Chapters 8-13 of the requirements text)

• CSSE 371, Software Requirements and Specification
  Don Bagert, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
• September 13, 2005
• Thanks to Mark Ardis and Steve Chenoweth for some
  of the slides included.

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Outline

• Background
• Barriers to Elicitation
• Features
• Techniques
• Interviewing
• Requirements Workshops and Brainstorming
• Storyboarding

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Barriers to Elicitation
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Three Common Barriers

• Each described in the text as a syndrome
• Yes, But Syndrome
• Undiscovered Ruins Syndrome
• User and Developer Syndrome

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Features
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Needs vs. Features

• Each stakeholder will have needs that will
  hopefully be addressed by the new system
• Example I want to be able to advise my students
  more effectively.
• A feature is a service that the system provides
  to fulfill one or more stakeholder needs.
• Example This tool will allow the advisor to see
  the critical path in an advisees coursework.
• Look for needs that suggest features

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Interviewing
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Where Should You Hold an Interview?

• Non-threatening environment
• Customer's turf
• Room large enough for group
• Free from distractions

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Interview Preparation

• Do some research
• Prepare questions
• Prepare agenda
• Select roles
• Leader
• Note taker
• Questioners

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Interview Phases

1. Establish user profile
2. Assess the problem
3. Understand the environment
4. Recap for understanding
5. Analyst's inputs

1. Assess solution
2. Assess opportunity
3. Assess reliability, performance
4. Other requirements
5. Wrap-up

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Why Not A Questionnaire Instead?...

• After all, they can be done so much more
  efficiently!
• Advantages of interviews
• Personal Contact
• Interaction/Follow-ups

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Requirements Workshops and Brainstorming
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Benefits of Requirements Workshop

• All stakeholders get their say
• May expose political issues
• Helps form effective team (developers and
  stakeholders)

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Workshop Facilitator

• Establish proper tone
• Introduce goals and agenda
• Keep team on track
• Facilitate decision making
• Make sure all voices are heard

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Sample One-Day Agenda

• Introduction 0.5 hours
• Context 1.5 hours
• Brainstorming 2.0 hours
• Lunch 1.0 hours
• Brainstorming 1.0 hours
• Feature definition 1.0 hours
• Idea reduction 1.0 hours
• Wrap-up 1.0 hours

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Brainstorming

• Benefits
• Encourages participation by all
• Allows participants to build on one another's
  ideas
• High bandwidth many ideas in short period of
  time
• Encourages out-of-the-box thinking

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One Brainstorming Method

• Write down ideas on post-it notes, put on wall
• Read ideas out loud
• No criticizing!

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A Similar Method

• Use an easel or whiteboard
• Ask for ideas and write them down as they are
  said aloud
• Once again - no criticizing!

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Idea Reduction

• Classify the ideas into groups
• Vote on the ideas (i.e. rank them)
• Choose what ideas will go forward post-workshop
• Prioritize the ideas

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Storyboarding
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Key Points

• Purpose Elicit Yes, But reactions
• Passive, active, interactive
• Identify players, explain what happens how
• Storyboards should be sketchy
• A place to add innovative content

Above, right At the forefront of innovative
content, interactivity is valuable only if it is
user-friendly. From www.rthk.org.hk/
mediadigest/md0001/04.html
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Get the idea from some Storyboard Examples

• More movies --This ones from Blade Runner
• In the movie industry, storyboarders dont think
  they get enough credit See www.tipjar.com/dan/co
  lomba.htm

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Another Storyboard Example

• More movies Ace Ventura When Nature Calls

Storyboard from Storyboarding 101, by James O.
Fraioli. Michael Weise Productions, 2000, ISBN
0-941188-25-6.
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Another Storyboard Example

• From software web development. This ones
  Understanding your automobile, at
  http//www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/authoring/studio
  /guidebook/storyboard_example.html
• You can check out their website for more about
  their methodology

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Ideas onhow to do these

• From a book on visual language
• Storyboards are an example of using the visual
  for multiple purposes
• Audience focus
• Designer focus
• And breadth in both

From Designing Visual Language, by Charles
Bostelnick and David D. Roberts. Allyn and Bacon,
1998, ISBN 0-205-20022-2, p. 42.