Examining Requirements Documentation through the Focused Conversation Method

Requirements documentation comprehends the challenge of accurately interpreting project details as specified by the client. There is no standard template that ensures that documentation would be evident in all aspects to developers. Furthermore, requirements documentation continuously evolves and has a continuously evolving audience (changes in the development team, reusing requirements in a new project, changing sub-contractor, etc.). In contrast, some well-known techniques, such as the Focused Conversation Method, have been proven to help determine needed direction and decisions, especially when it involves people of mixed backgrounds. We hence had the intuition to use such an approach to the requirements documentation phase. Based on the focused conversation method, consisting of a mix of interviews and surveys analysis, we argue that the outcomes (organized and structured requirements) are efficient in terms of sound qualities (i.e., unambiguous). The approach is evaluated on an empirical case study with students of the Innopolis University