joe
04-03-2006, 09:14 PM
I read a paper a few months ago called 'Child's Play: Using Techniques Developed to Elicit Requirements from Children with Adults' written by Nicola Millard, Paula Lynch, and Karina Tracey (you can access the article here (http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/proceedings/&toc=comp/proceedings/icre/1998/8356/00/8356toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/ICRE.1998.667810) if you have an IEEE Computer Society account).
The article itself wasn't all that enlightening. The one idea that I got out of it that I found useful was the distinction between gathering requirements and creating them.
Children, the article argues, are only really good at describing what is going on around them. They are not good at putting a solution in place to change the current situation.
The reason this is good for requirements gathering is that you want the users to focus on the problem and let the product manager and developers focus on the technical solution.
The case study presented is not that compelling, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.
joe
The article itself wasn't all that enlightening. The one idea that I got out of it that I found useful was the distinction between gathering requirements and creating them.
Children, the article argues, are only really good at describing what is going on around them. They are not good at putting a solution in place to change the current situation.
The reason this is good for requirements gathering is that you want the users to focus on the problem and let the product manager and developers focus on the technical solution.
The case study presented is not that compelling, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.
joe