Page 161 -

128 Part 2 • InformatIon requIrements analysIs

interview a different employee. Those playing the roles of systems analysts should work together
to develop common questions that they will ask, as well as questions tailored to each individual
employee. Be sure to include open-ended, closed, and probing questions in your interviews.
Maverick Transport is attempting to change from outdated and unreliable technology to more
state-of-the-art, dependable technology. The company is seeking to move from dumb terminals
attached to a mainframe because it wants to use PCs in some way, and it is also interested in investi-
gating a satellite system for tracking freight and drivers. In addition, the company is interested in pur-
suing ways to cut down on the immense storage requirements and difficult access of the troublesome
handwritten, multipart forms that accompany each shipment.
2. Conduct all five interviews in a role-playing exercise. If there are more than 10 people in your group,
permit 2 or more analysts to ask questions.
3. With your group, write a plan for a joint application design (JAD) session that takes the place of per-
sonal interviews. Include relevant participants, suggested setting, and so on.
4. Using the interview data you gained from the group exercise on Maverick Transport in Group Project 1,
meet with your group to brainstorm the design of a questionnaire for the hundreds of truck drivers
that Maverick Transport employs. Recall that Maverick is interested in implementing a satellite sys-
tem for tracking freight and drivers. There are other systems that may affect the drivers as well. As
your group constructs the questionnaire, consider the drivers’ likely level of education and any time
constraints the drivers are under for completing such a form.
5. Using the interview data you gained from the group exercise on Maverick Transport in Group
Project 1, your group should meet to design an email or Web questionnaire for surveying the company’s
20 programmers (15 of whom have been hired in the past year) about their skills, ideas for new or
enhanced systems, and so on. Investigate the Web survey options available at SurveyMonkey.com. As
your group constructs the programmer survey, consider what you have learned about users in the other
interviews as well as what vision the director of information technology has for the company.

Selected Bibliography
Ackroyd, S., and J. A. Hughes. Data Collection Context, 2nd ed. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1992.
Alvesson, M. Interpreting Interviews, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Ltd, 2010.
Cash, C. J., and W. B. Stewart, Jr. Interviewing Principles and Practices, 13th ed. New York: McGraw-
Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Language, 2010.
Cooper, D. R., and P. S. Schindler. Business Research Methods, 11th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin,
2010.
Deetz, S. Transforming Communication, Transforming Business: Building Responsive and Responsible
Workplaces. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995.
Emerick, D., K. Round, and S. Joyce. Exploring Web Marketing and Project Management. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 2000.
Gane, C. Rapid System Development. New York: Rapid System Development, 1987.
Georgia Tech’s Graphic, Visualization, and Usability Center. “GVU WWW Survey Through 1998,”
www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-1998-10/. Last accessed July 30, 2012.
Hessler, R. M. Social Research Methods. New York: West, 1992.
Joint Application Design. GUIDE Publication GPP-147. Chicago: GUIDE International, 1986.
Kendall, J. E. and K. E. Kendall. “Storytelling as a Qualitative Method for IS Research: Heralding the
Heroic and Echoing the Mythic.” Australasian Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2012,
pp. 161–187.
Peterson, R. A. Constructing Effective Questionnaires. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1999.
Strauss, J., and R. Frost. E-Marketing, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012.
Wansink, B., S. Sudman, and N. M. Bradburn. Asking Questions: The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire
Design—For Market Research, Political Polls, and Social and Health Questionnaires, 2nd ed. New
York: Wiley, 2010.

The CPU Case Episode and accompanying student files are available online at www.pearsonhighered.com/
kendall.