Cscw Requirements and Evaluation Cscw and Requirements Analysis: Requirements as Cooperation/requirements for Cooperation

Interviews with IS developers suggest that requirements analysis is rarely perceived as a cooperative activity. Instead it is often seen as a process of extracting requirements from passive clients (as terms such as “requirements capture” and “requirements engineering” imply). A more cooperative approach which recognises requirements analysis as a negotiative process between analyst(s) and client(s) however, might help to overcome some of the problems encountered in traditional requirements analysis. In this chapter we will discuss some of the conditions which encourage or discourage the development of a more cooperative requirements process. We will also describe the potential use of Cognitive Mapping, as a technique specifically developed to support negotiation, in requirements analysis.