Requirements Elicitation

Reference Files

• references/elicitation-techniques.md - Lookup table of 15+ elicitation techniques with when to use, participants, output format, and time needed. Read this in Step 2 when selecting techniques and in Step 3 when planning sessions.

Overview

Based on the BABOK Guide v3 (IIBA) - Elicitation & Collaboration knowledge area, which defines 50 standardized techniques across 6 knowledge areas. Also draws on Mastering the Requirements Process by Suzanne & James Robertson for the Volere "trawling" approach - their term for iterative elicitation driven by business events, not document templates. The key insight: elicitation is not a phase you complete; it is a continuous activity that starts with business events and stakeholders, not with a blank requirements template.

Workflow

Step 1: Identify stakeholders and business events

List every person, role, and adjacent system that touches the problem space. Use the BABOK's stakeholder categories: customer, end user, sponsor, domain expert, regulator, implementation team. Then list the business events that trigger the process or system under analysis - Robertson's Business Event List is the elicitation backbone.

Step 2: Select elicitation techniques

Match techniques to stakeholder type and information need (see references/elicitation-techniques.md). Use a mix:

• Interviews for deep individual knowledge
• Workshops for cross-functional alignment and conflict surfacing
• Observation/Apprenticing (Robertson) for tacit knowledge users cannot articulate
• Document Analysis for existing rules, policies, and constraints
• Prototyping for validating understanding with users

Step 3: Plan and schedule sessions

For each session, define:

SESSION: [type - interview / workshop / observation]
STAKEHOLDER(S): [names and roles]
OBJECTIVE: [what you need to learn]
TECHNIQUE: [from reference table]
DURATION: [estimated time]
PREPARATION: [materials, context docs, pre-reads]

Step 4: Conduct elicitation

During sessions:

• Start with open-ended context questions ("Walk me through how you do X today")
• Progress to specific probes ("What happens when Y fails?")
• Capture requirements using Robertson's Volere Snow Card format: requirement number, type, description, rationale, source, fit criterion
• Note assumptions, constraints, and conflicts separately
• Record who said what - source traceability starts here

Step 5: Confirm and validate

After each session:

• Write up findings within 24 hours
• Send back to stakeholders for confirmation (BABOK's "confirm elicitation results")
• Flag conflicts between stakeholders - do not resolve silently
• Identify gaps that need follow-up sessions

Step 6: Organize and classify requirements

Classify using BABOK's hierarchy:

• Business requirements - why the organization needs this
• Stakeholder requirements - what users need to do
• Solution requirements - functional + non-functional
• Transition requirements - what's needed to move from current to future state

Anti-Patterns

1. Template-first elicitation Bad: Sending a requirements template to stakeholders and asking them to fill it in. Good: Conduct interviews and workshops first, then organize findings into a structured format.

2. Single-technique reliance Bad: Only conducting interviews, missing tacit knowledge that observation would reveal. Good: Use at least 3 techniques per project - interviews for depth, workshops for alignment, observation for reality.

3. Eliciting solutions instead of needs Bad: "The user wants a dropdown menu." (That's a solution.) Good: "The user needs to select from a constrained set of valid values." (That's a requirement.)

4. No source traceability Bad: Requirements listed without noting who requested them or why. Good: Every requirement links back to a stakeholder, business event, or document source.

5. One-pass elicitation Bad: Running a single round of interviews and declaring requirements "complete." Good: Iterative trawling - each round reveals gaps that drive the next round.

Quality Checklist

• All stakeholder categories identified (users, sponsors, domain experts, regulators)
• Business events listed as elicitation drivers
• At least 3 elicitation techniques selected
• Each session has a defined objective and preparation
• Requirements captured with source attribution
• Findings confirmed with stakeholders
• Conflicts between stakeholders flagged (not silently resolved)
• Requirements classified by BABOK hierarchy
• Gaps identified with follow-up sessions planned