ElicitingElicitingElicitingElicitingthe the the the RequirementsRequirementsRequirementsRequirements

Luigi Rega, PMP®

Consultant at Reply

IIBA® Italy Chapter Secretary

28 February 2014

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Eliciting the Requirements - Just 3 WWWWs

1. What is the «elicitation»?

2. How is the elicitation performed?

3. Why eliciting requirements?

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What the elicitation is: definitiondefinitiondefinitiondefinition

• The verb «to elicit» comes from Latin:

Elicio (elicio, elicis, elicui, elicitum, elicere)Italian tr.: «tirar fuori, trarre, far uscire, dedurre da»

• English definition:

To elicit: to evoke or draw out, to draw or bring out for forth, to bring to light, to draw forth into existence

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What we mean by elicitingelicitingelicitingeliciting the the the the REQsREQsREQsREQs

• More than just gathering requirements

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What we mean by elicitingelicitingelicitingeliciting the the the the REQsREQsREQsREQs

• More than just gathering requirements

• There is a «need to actively engage the stakeholders in defining requirements»

• Often stakeholders don’t have a clear picture of their requirements

• Different stakeholders may have conflictingrequirements

• Eliciting requirements is not an isolated activity

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Requirements Elicitation - Just 3 WWWWs

1. What is the «elicitation»?

2. How is the elicitation performed?

3. Why eliciting requirements?

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How the elicitation is performed

Prepare for Elicitation

ConductElicitation

Activity

DocumentElicitation

Results

ConfirmElicitation

Results

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Elicitation techniques

BABOK® Guide v2.0

Elicitation Techniques

• Brainstorming

• Document Analysis

• Focus Groups

• Interface Analysis

• Interviews

• Observation

• Prototyping

• Requirements Workshops

• Survey/ Questionnaire

PMBOK® Guide v5.0

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Project Scope Management

5.2 Collect

Requirements

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Prototyping - not only to test/show

• Prototypes can be used in early phases of the project to elicit requirements

• GoogleTM Labs: a playground where […] users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly

to the engineers who developed them.

• PalmTM Pilot: the first successful PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) started its development by… a wooden prototype!

• iGoogle

• Google Maps

• Google Docs

• Google Groups

• …

Computer History Museum, Mountain View CA

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Requirements Elicitation - Just 3 WWWWs

1. What is the «elicitation»?

2. How is the elicitation performed?

3. Why eliciting requirements?

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Why shall requirements be elicited?

• PM&BA’s common enemy: the Scope Creep!

• Much of business or technical requirements resides in the stakeholders’ minds

• Good requirements can not just be collected from the Customer or from the Sponsor

• PM&BA shall work together to achieve proper and complete Stakeholder Analysis, and a successful Requirements collection

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What if you don’tdon’tdon’tdon’t?NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter

• FAILURE: Disintegrated on Mars atmpsphere

• ROOT CAUSE: one team used Imperial units while the other used Metric units for a key operation

• NASA board’s report: «the process to verify and validate certain engineering requirements […] was inadequate»

Airbus A380

• FAILURE: Wires manufactured to specification, but turned out to be too short!

• ROOT CAUSE: different versions of the SW used: German and Spanish designers used CATIA version 4, British and French used version 5

facebook home & HTC First

• FAILURE: Commercial flop, both Application and Device

• ROOT CAUSE: Poor business case ( and why a dedicated device for it?) + (gossip) Android application built by iPhone users!

530 km of wires

Additional costs: ~6.1B $

Costs: 193.1 million $

~5k Users, <0.5% mobile users

Star Rating: 2.8 / 5.0

HTC First: 99 $ -> 0,99 $

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ConclusionsConclusionsConclusionsConclusions

• REQs Elicitation is essential to define the projectScope

• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. - Marcus Aurelius

• PM&BA shall plan the Elicitation properly• If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process,

you don’t know what you’re doing. - W. Edwards Deming

• Give the right importance to feedbacks• You have two ears and one mouth. I suggest that you

use them in that proportion. - G.K. Chesterton

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Contacts

Luigi Rega

• Secretary@italy.iiba.org

• LinkedIn: http://lnkd.in/dPgigt5

• www.italy.iiba.org

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