Using Template Analysis as Background Reading Technique for Requirements Elicitation.
Sebastian Stein, Yves Lauer, Marwane El Kharbili · 2009
Abstract: Requirements cannot be collected, but must be elicited from people’s tacit and systems ’ embedded knowledge. It is a proven approach to use existing systems and manuals as a source. Literature suggests using background reading to elicit require-ments from domain descriptions and manuals. Besides content analysis, no concrete technique describing how to actually conduct background reading is available in lit-erature. In this paper, we evaluate the usage of template analysis as a technique for background reading. We applied template analysis in a project to extract requirements from 35 success stories about process performance management. We found template analysis to be very useful not just for eliciting requirements and creating a shared un-derstanding of the studied domain, but also for helping new employees to get familiar with the domain. We also formulated competence questions to document and commu-nicate requirements, but this did not prove helpful and hence we would not recommend it. 1