How to Get Your HP on the Road with Requirements Engineering

Requirements Engineering is a discipline in software development that ensures the needs, expectations, and desires of stakeholders are met, forming the basis for the entire development process.

It also helps avoid misdevelopments, define clear objectives, improve project planning, and minimize project risks.

In the previous blog post, a general understanding of the various elicitation techniques was established. Now, we will delve deeper into the subject to understand how we can identify and determine the performance factors for our project.

This article focuses on identifying performance factors and explains the advantages and disadvantages of survey and collaboration techniques, the pitfalls that must be avoided, and what generally needs to be considered during implementation.

Performance factors are requirements that proportionally increase stakeholder satisfaction according to their degree of fulfillment. The more performance requirements are met, the greater the stakeholder satisfaction; the fewer are met, the lower the satisfaction. These requirements are not taken for granted and are usually conscious requirements explicitly demanded by the stakeholders.

Although survey and collaboration techniques can be used for identifying all three types of factors (basic, performance, and excitement factors), they offer particular potential for identifying performance factors to reveal the conscious requirements of our stakeholders.

Survey techniques provide the opportunity to directly engage with the affected stakeholders and gather various inputs for the requirements. They differ significantly in their advantages and disadvantages, as well as in the pitfalls that should be avoided.

Interviews

Interviews are structured, semi-structured, or unstructured conversations with stakeholders to directly elicit requirements. While structured interviews focus on answering predefined questions, a semi- or unstructured interview allows for the possibility of stakeholders bringing in additional valuable information of which we were previously unaware.

Advantages:

• Direct and targeted information gathering
• Opportunity to clarify misunderstandings in real-time
• Allows for in-depth analysis of individual requirements

Disadvantages:

• Time-consuming in preparation, execution, and evaluation
• Risk of subjective bias in interpreting questions and answers
• Fewer people can be involved compared to questionnaires

Difficulties and Pitfalls:

• Unclear questions can lead to incorrect or imprecise answers
• Selecting the right stakeholders for interviews and their availability
• Without a structured guide or domain knowledge, important requirements may be overlooked

What Must Be Considered?

• Well-prepared questions that take into account the project context
• Active listening and targeted follow-up inquiries
• Documentation of responses for later validation

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are written data collection methods where stakeholders answer their requirements in a structured format. They are particularly useful for quickly gathering many opinions in a structured format.

Advantages:

• Efficient for gathering multiple opinions
• Standardized responses make evaluation easier
• Less effort required compared to interviews

Disadvantages:

• No opportunity for spontaneous clarification of ambiguities
• Risk of incomplete or misunderstood responses
• Low motivation from stakeholders to answer questions in detail

Difficulties and Pitfalls:

• Questions must be clear, precise, and understandable
• Lack of flexibility if new questions arise
• Incomplete return of questionnaires and low response rates

What Must Be Considered?

• Use clear and simple phrasing
• Tailor questions to the target audience
• Avoid highly technical or complex issues
• Mix closed and open questions for qualitative and quantitative insights
• Pilot test the questionnaire to validate understandability

Recommendation:

Rather than choosing only one of the two techniques, it is advisable to include both interviews and questionnaires in gathering requirements. For example, a questionnaire can be used to structure many opinions and inputs quickly, which can then be further explored and analyzed through interviews with relevant stakeholders based on the insights gained.

Collaboration techniques allow requirements to be determined jointly and exploratively. They encourage active exchange with relevant stakeholders and provide the opportunity to develop requirements in great detail.

Workshops

Description:

Workshops are moderated group sessions in which stakeholders collaboratively develop and prioritize requirements.

Advantages:

• Encourages active participation and discussion
• Immediate clarification of questions and requirements
• Facilitates shared understanding and consensus-building

Disadvantages:

• Significant organizational effort
• Risk of dominant participants overshadowing others
• High time and cost factors (loss of productivity, travel time, and related expenses)

Difficulties and Pitfalls:

• Lack of structure can lead to inefficient discussions
• Conflicting opinions can lead to conflicts
• Time constraints may result in not discussing all aspects
• Difficulty in involving all relevant stakeholders

What Must Be Considered?

• Clear moderation and structuring of the workshop
• Use of suitable methods, such as role-based thinking, World Café, or user-story workshops
• Documentation of results for future follow-up

Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering

Crowd-based Requirements Engineering utilizes the collective intelligence of a large user group (e.g., through online platforms) to gather and assess requirements.

Advantages:

• Large amount of input from various perspectives
• Allows iterative refinement of requirements
• Low initial effort for organizers

Disadvantages:

• Difficulty distinguishing relevant from irrelevant requirements
• Risk of spam or irrelevant submissions
• High effort for analyzing collected requirements

Difficulties and Pitfalls:

• Need for a structured platform for collecting and assessing requirements
• Lack of control over the quality of submissions
• Anonymity may lead to unreliable or unfounded contributions

What Must Be Considered?

• Clear guidelines for collecting requirements
• Mechanisms for assessing and filtering collected contributions
• Regular communication with the "crowd" to ensure quality

Recommendation:

The choice of the right collaboration technique depends heavily on the stakeholder target group. If the goal is to reach as many end-users as possible outside of the company, crowd-based methods offer an excellent opportunity to ascertain requirements. If the number of affected stakeholders is small, or if the stakeholders are exclusively from within the company, workshops provide the means to collaboratively determine requirements. Furthermore, it’s possible to initially gather many requirements through crowd-based methods and then refine them in detail with a focus group.

The choice of the right elicitation technique depends on the project goals, stakeholder structure, and available resources. Interviews and questionnaires offer a direct means to collect information from stakeholders, while workshops and crowd-based RE promote collaboration and creative exchange.

Correctly identifying performance factors is not a coincidence—it is the result of smart methodology and genuine collaboration. Together, we will get your HP on the road and set you on the path to more satisfied stakeholders and successful projects! Utilize our expertise to turn requirements into tangible results.