The document provides an overview of techniques for requirements elicitation, including interviews, brainstorming, focus groups, questionnaires, and workshops. It discusses the concept of "garbage in, garbage out" to emphasize the importance of collecting high quality input data. The "5 Ws" framework is presented as a method for ensuring questions address who, what, when, where, and why to fully understand requirements. Tips are provided for asking effective questions, such as avoiding interruptions and imposing answers, and using silence, correct wording, and prepared lists to guide the conversation.

1. The Art of Asking
Right Questions

2. AGENDA
 Requirements elicitation techniques overview
 GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out (Google it!)
 ‘Ask me if you can’: mini-game
 The “5 Ws”
 Questions: tunnel effect
 Tips for effective questioning

3. Fun Fact
… [clients] with children estimated that 70-80% of their kids’ dialogues with
others were comprised of questions. But those same clients said that only 15-
25% of their own interactions consisted of questions.
Harvard Business Review Magazine, 2015

4. Types of Elicitation
COLLABORATIVE
RESEARCH
EXPERIMENTS
involves direct interaction with stakeholders, and relies on their
experiences, expertise, and judgment
involves systematically discovering and studying information from
materials or sources
involves identifying information that could not be known without some
sort of controlled test (observational studies, proofs of concept, and
prototypes)

5. Techniques
INTERVIEWS
BRAINSTORMING
FOCUS GROUPS
QUESTIONNAIRE
WORKSHOPS
ACTIVE OBSERVATION

6. GIGO
In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) describes the concept that flawed,
or nonsense input data produces nonsense output or "garbage".

7. Kick-off meeting in 3…2…now!
 Customer is from Denmark
 Needs a mobile application to sell flight
tickets
 Later he wants to add hotels booking
 App is planned to be published no later
than 1st of October, 2019

8. The “Five Ws”
 THE “WHO”
 Who is the solution being developed for?
 Who are we creating the requirements for? (Stakeholders / Dev team)
 THE “WHAT”
 What business problem are you trying to solve?
 What should successful solution do?
 THE “WHEN”
 When does the solution need to be completed?
 When does the new system need to be available?

9. The “Five Ws”
 THE “WHERE”
 Where is the solution going to be used?
 Where is the solution going to be developed and tested?
 THE “WHY”
 Why is one solution favored over another?
 Why are the given features needed and why are they important?
 …AND THE ONE “H”
 How can we judge the success of the solution?

10. The Funnel Effect
 Open questions: get
information
 Probing questions: get
reasons behind answers to
open questions
 Closing questions: get
confirmation of understanding

11. Tips & Tricks
 Don’t interrupt: create a more patient and relaxed conversation
 Don’t ask just for the purpose of asking
 Use the silence
 Use correct grammar and wording
 Have prepared lists

12. Tips & Tricks
 Give context: explain why you are asking
 Get context: ask for the reasoning behind the answer
 Don’t impose answers
 Repeat and summarize: in questions and meeting minutes
 Be prepared for negative answers and reactions

13. Thank you!
Q & A