Requirements Analysis – Part 3 Stakeholder Identification & Interviews

A major new emphasis in the 1990s was a focus on the identification of stakeholders. It is increasingly recognized that stakeholders are not limited to the organization employing the analyst.

Other stakeholders will include:

• Organizations that integrate horizontally with the organization the analyst is designing the system for
• Back office systems or organizations
• Senior management

Stakeholder Interviews

Stakeholder interviews are a common method used in requirement analysis. These interviews may reveal requirements not previously envisaged as being within the scope of the project, and requirements may be contradictory. However, each stakeholder will have an idea of their expectation or will have visualized their requirements.

Contract-style requirement lists

One traditional way of documenting requirements has been contract style requirement lists. In a complex system such requirements lists can run to hundreds of pages of technical documentation.