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REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION TECHNIQUES AS COMMUNICATION CHANNELS 27
COMMUNICATION FOR REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION

Prior research attempting to improve on the requirements elicitation process focuses on the two
primary populations involved in this process, the user and the analyst. Much of this research has
usually attempted to overcome the challenges faced by analysts in eliciting requirements from
users by focusing either on the cognitive limitations within these populations of information
processors, by examining the conflicts that occur among these populations, or by examining the
obstacles in communications between them (Byrd, Cossick, and Zmud, 1992; Davis, 1982; Siau
and Tan, 2005; Valusek and Fryback, 1987).
Research focused on overcoming challenges within individuals and resolving conflicts among
the two populations has been instrumental in the larger context of requirements elicitation. Within
issues such as memory limitations, bias, and bounded rationality have generated research into
methods and techniques to overcome these cognitive limitations, leading to the introduction of
various techniques such as devil’s advocacy and what-if analyses into the systems analyst’s rep-
ertoire (Browne and Ramesh, 2002). Likewise, research considering the conflicts between these
populations has examined and developed techniques to minimize or rationalize the conflicts that
occur from elicitation, as the requirements may themselves be complex, contradictory, too large,
or impossible to satisfy (Valusek and Fryback, 1987). The research from this stream of literature
has introduced methods and techniques such as requirements interaction management (Robinson,
Pawlowski, and Volkov, 2003), multiviewpoint analysis (Horai, 1996), and requirement collabora-
tion systems (Chen and Nunamaker, 1991).
Our focal interest in this chapter is on the fundamental communication-based techniques and
methods available for use by an analyst that underlie the acquisition and understanding of system
requirements. This research on the interaction between users and analysts considers more closely
the communication challenges that can impede the requirements elicitation process (Davis, 1982;
Valusek and Fryback, 1987). These problems often come about due to variations in the richness of
the knowledge bases between users and analysts, and by the inherent complexities of the informa-
tion that is needed by both parties to define and articulate the business context and requirements.
To illustrate the range of communication challenges that arise from variations in the knowledge
bases of users and analysts, we use personal construct theory (Gaines, 2003; Hudlicka, 1996;
Kelly, 1955) and elements of the Johari window (Luft, 1970) to classify them.
Personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) suggests that individuals construct their own interpre-
tations of the world around them. As such, individuals may differ in their interpretations of the
world through this construction process. It is through a social process that these constructions are
shared between individuals to develop what may be called communality, where two individuals
share a similar construction of a particular event or world subject. In the systems development
process, it is through the social process of requirements elicitation where the analyst attempts to
develop this communality, by understanding and capturing the constructions of a user that identify
potential requirements for the information system.
The Johari window is a depiction of the states of awareness between two individuals. It suggests
that two individuals have four states of awareness in any interaction. These four states come about
due to differences in each individual’s knowledge of him/herself and the other individual involved
in the interaction. Figure 3.1 identifies four states of awareness on the degree of mutuality in the
knowledge bases of user and analyst. The four quadrants (each a classification of intersubjective
experience) indicate how these two types of individuals may share understanding and interpreta-
tions about the business context of interest. It also enables a categorization of the communication