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22 FULLER AND DAVIS
end users, resulting in unused, poorly used, or misused systems. As the range of “businesses”
that information systems support becomes wider and more specialized, these communication
challenges increase.
Prior research has identified the need for effective collaboration between the analysis and
design and user communities (Berry and Lawrence, 1998; Browne and Ramesh, 2002; Davis,
1982; Kim and Peterson, 2001). Communication between users and analysts is accomplished us-
ing a range of methodologies, tools, and techniques. In this chapter, we consider the efficacy of
user–analyst communication at the elicitation tool/technique level. This work was prompted by
the persistence of communication difficulties in requirements elicitation despite both the growing
maturity of systems analysis as a professional field and the wide range of communication tools
and techniques available.
Recent research shows that communication persists as a principal locus of the issues and
concerns in requirements elicitation (Roberts et al., 2005; Smith, Keil, and Depledge, 2001).
Clearly, as the range of information systems applications and development methodologies, tools,
and techniques expands, effective communication becomes an increasingly critical imperative for
effective requirements elicitation.
Over the past thirty years, research and development efforts have explored the potential of a
range of techniques to facilitate user–analyst communication. A review of this work identifies
three broad communication emphases, from providing methods to help the analyst ask questions to
providing methods to help users frame their responses to the analyst. Although they strive for the
common goal of optimizing the identification, description, and capture of user requirements, there
are substantial variations in the purpose of the communication they facilitate.
A review of the requirements engineering literature highlights the introduction of elicitation
techniques such as interviews, brainstorming sessions, scenario analysis, use case modeling, con-
textual inquiry, and even ethnography (Alter, 2004). These more qualitative, interpretive techniques
are drawn from the social sciences. They contrast with the more traditional engineering origins
of elicitation techniques and represent attempts to provide analysts with deeper insight into, and
understanding of, the user’s world (Somerville and Ransom, 2005). However, the inherent dif-
ferences between these elicitation techniques as a means of communication between users and
analysts have remained largely unexplored. This has given rise to communication technique (or
“channel”) compatibility issues: misinterpretations, misconceptions, and mistakes in requirements
elicitation have arisen from their injudicious use (Boehm and Huang, 2003).
Despite attempts to complement traditional engineering techniques (e.g., flow charting, note
boards, etc.), analysts face a continuing dilemma. They need robust and reliable inquiry techniques,
but ones that do not constrain their ability to understand the end user’s world or limit the opportu-
nities for innovation and invention. Likewise, these techniques need to be as effective, efficient,
and appropriate as possible given the business context and the understanding required.
Effective requirements elicitation thus remains a central and critical activity in the systems
analysis and design process: this chapter explores the nature of the communication challenges
that confront analysts and users during requirements elicitation. The chapter begins by providing
a review and classification of requirements elicitation techniques that highlight their differing
communication emphases. The classification is used to develop a conceptual model of the user–
analyst communication process that identifies the communication characteristics of a range of task
(requirements elicitation) contexts. We explain how the model can be used to identify commu-
nication issues that give rise to ambiguity and misunderstanding during requirements elicitation.
Following discussion of the range and nature of these issues, we map a range of requirements
elicitation techniques into the framework. The main body of the chapter provides analysis of the