Comparison of Requirements Elicitation Techniques

Abstract

Many software development projects fail because the resulting software does not satisfy the end user’s needs. If requirement engineer have practiced more effectively requirements elicitation techniques, fewer projects will fail. There are numbers of techniques available which can be used by requirement engineers for taking requirements form their clients. Requirement engineer encounters number of difficulties while selecting one of the most suitable techniques of requirements elicitation for a particular project. A technique which is used in one project for taking requirements may not be suitable for another. Selecting a technique for taking requirements elicitation depends upon number of factors and as and when there is a change in these factors, techniques needs to be adjusted. This research work is a comparison of requirements elicitation techniques with a focus to find out most effective and most preferred requirements elicitation technique. In this research five elicitation techniques are taken for comparison. These techniques are Interview, Joint Application Design, Brainstorming, User Scenarios and Mind Mapping. These techniques are selected on the basis of their historical developments. The result of research shows that Interview is the best technique among these techniques. These results are based upon the empirical study and literature study. In empirical study a questionnaire was prepared related to these five techniques and responses are collected from requirements engineers working in various software development companies and people involved in website developments. In literature study, various research papers related to requirements engineering were studied. In literature review again interview technique was turned out to be an effective technique and new research also supports the same results.