Preparing the Customer

The guided interview will provide the requirements analyst with a wealth of information. However, without both sides of the interview being properly prepared, there will be periods of inefficiency while the customer searches for answers to the analysts questions. To help the customer prepare for the interview, there will be a series of documents sent to them about User Stories and Business Events/Use Cases. It is important to acclimate the customer to both of these requirements gathering tools to ensure that we have access to requirements concepts at multiple levels of abstraction.

The customer should be immediately sent a document describing both the concept of User Stories and Business Events/Use Cases following the initial contact. This document should describe both concepts in enough detail to get the customer thinking about their request from the concept of the Business Events that drive the process and the simple User Stories that can be helpful in describing to the requirements analyst the day to day activities of the department/customers. The document should also include a set of examples of both Business Events/Use Cases and the corresponding User Stories. The use of a fictional, very simple, generic project should be used to link all of the examples into a coherent whole.

Preparing the Interview Guide

Concurrently with the customer learning about Business Events/Use Cases and User Stories, the requirements analyst should be taking the answers to questions from the initial contact and preparing the Interview Guide. This document will be sent to the customer at least three business days BEFORE the scheduled interview to allow the customer to prepare answers and have any materials (forms, examples) on hand.

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