User requirements and preferences for ITS Chapter | 4 47• Discussions with experts and stakeholders are not foreseen at this technique.
• Even expert analysts may find it difficult to imagine every aspect of the new
system.
4.3.2 Collaborative techniques
Collaborative techniques assume that individual stakeholders and analysts work
together in order to reach common decisions. Experts from different domains
contribute their opinions about the system, having equal power to the final deci-
sion. These group elicitation techniques are considered better than traditional
ones, due to the multidisciplinary nature of the opinion collection process. They
include—brainstorming, prototyping, and joint application development (JAD)
as explained in the following.
- Brainstorming
Brainstorming can be very effective in creating new ideas and extracting
potential requirements. The requirements can be reviewed and filtered accord-
ing to their appropriateness and importance for the system. The brainstorming
process assumes recording of all ideas, elimination of those that are inappropri-
ate, and prioritization of the remaining appropriate ones.
Brainstorming sessions require participants to:
• Generate many ideas at first, and then consider the applicability and effi-
ciency of each one of them.
• Avoid criticizing the ideas of other participants.
• Be open about ideas that seem “crazy” at first sight.
• Build on existing ideas and expand them appropriately.
There are many advantages in the use of brainstorming for requirements
elicitation. The technique can be very useful and promises great benefits, if done
correctly, because:
• It is easy to learn and use.
• It is cheap to implement.
• It can generate a large number of ideas.
• It improves the working atmosphere, with the joint action.
• It motivates the creativity of participants and leads to more acceptable (at
least by the team members) solutions.
- JAD sessions
The joint application development methodology actively involves the end-
users in software design and development, through the JAD sessions, a series of
collaborative workshops, where the various stakeholders work together on the
system requirements and design until they reach a consensus.