Requirements Determination: Themes and Communication Strategies

Communication is playing a central part of requirement determination (RD), particularly given that the many human interfaces associated with RD can lead to a variety of communication challenges, including miscommunication between users and analysts and misunderstandings between analysts and developers, all of which can add time and cost to software projects. This paper describes analysts-users communication during the RD. The focus of this work is a discussion of communication strategies used by analysts-users. Through the inductive approach we have investigated the perceptions of analysts regarding the communication strategies during RD. Analysis leads us to confirm that first, the analysts suggested that multiple channels of communication are needed to facilitate better information acquisition, sharing, and integration. This gives rise to shared understanding of the clients’ need and derivation of a consensual solution to the problem in a timely manner. Second, visual cues easily observable in face-to-face settings allow the analysts greater awareness of when others are attending to them and they subsequently use this feedback to determine appropriate behavior. Third, the use of phone calls, shared screen and videoconferencing may offset the cost of lower productivity through reductions in travel time and costs since the social presence communication media provided visual cues that are observable in face-to-face settings. KeywordsRequirements Determination; communication