Analyzing and comparing traditional face-to-face, online, and hybrid (partly face-to-face and partly online) elicitation techniques. That’s the challenge of this assignment. And taking into account the technique itself, the goal, means to achieve it, interaction with participants, and documentation used, in order to provide advice on which techniques to use in different situations and improve the elicitation process.

💡Areas of Interest: Requirements engineering, Elicitation techniques, Remote/hybrid work

The process of obtaining requirements for a system from stakeholders, also known as requirements elicitation, used to involve many face-to-face interactions. However, during the last three years, due to Covid-19, this has often been impossible. Nevertheless, requirements elicitation has not stopped; it has adapted and changed by incorporating new (mostly online) techniques.

To achieve the best requirements using the best processes and techniques, it is desirable to evaluate and understand the impact of these new techniques. To do this, we need to gain insight into which online techniques were used, what results they yielded, and how they compare to traditional face-to-face techniques.

Furthermore, working from home has become more common and accepted. This can result in meetings in which requirements are elicited being partly face-to-face and partly online due to people working from home. These hybrid elicitation sessions may require a requirements engineer to incorporate new techniques. What hybrid techniques have already been used, and how do they compare to face-to-face and online techniques?

The Assignment

The goal of this thesis will be to make a comprehensive analysis of three categories of elicitation techniques:

• Traditionally / face-to-face
• Online
• Hybrid (partly face-to-face and partly online at the same time)

For each elicitation technique, it is important to consider the technique itself; the goal or aim; the means to achieve that goal; the (type of) interaction with the participants; and the artifacts/documentation used and/or created during the session(s). The techniques will be evaluated and compared for each situation.

Based on the results, this research can help requirements engineers to improve the elicitation process.

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