The Many Manners of Gathering Requirements

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The Many Manners of Gathering Requirements

Sainath Nagarajan, PMP, SCPM

September 24, 2007





It is indeed ironic that despite our proclamations on why requirements gathering is important, scant thought is given to what might be the most appropriate means and ways to get requirements. Trade press and clichéd rhetoric would have us believe that the problem is to bridge business and IT and get someone that can “speak both languages”.
 
So the hunt begins for the right people from each IT and business group, who embark on the quest to find requirements, patiently goaded and cheered on by the project manager. Sure, you will find what you need! The key to smarter requirements gathering lies in understanding the audience and respectfully tailoring the means of information gathering in order to reach the desired goal.
 
The underlying principle expanded upon here is that we need to effectively become better artistes that can successful gather discrete informational inputs and insights through consciously tailored methods, and actively integrate the information into various tactical repositories.
 
Some of the many manners of gathering requirements which I’ll outline here can be used by any savvy professional, whether in IT or business, and won’t require any special language, codes or roles.
 
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