What are Elicit Requirements?

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Eliciting requirements sounds like the easiest task in the world. Ask questions to users or the business and get the requirements. In the real world this process is one of the most difficult parts of the project. If the requirements are not fully understood, it will create issues in your analysis and decrease your chances of efficiency and success. If you can properly elecit, verify, and validate the requirements, you will lay the foundation for an effective project.
The phrase "gather requirements" does not express the real mission of the IT project requirements. You are not a cave man, you do not gather requirements, they are not just laying around on the ground for you to pick them up. "Elicit" is the word that better matches the job. Elicit refers to an active role in IT requirements consolidation, verification and validation. Merriam-Webster defines elicit as; “To draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential), To call forth or draw out (as information or a response)”. “it is the responsibility of project stakeholders to provide, clarify, specify, and prioritize requirements. Furthermore, it is the right of project stakeholders that developers invest the time to identify and understand those requirements. This concept is critical to your success as an agile modeler, it is the role of project stakeholders to provide requirements, it is the role of developers to understand and implement them.” (Ambler, 2011)
When I was a young soldier I was given a mission. Before we left we had to read back everything we heard to make sure we understood the plan to its original intent. This may seem crude but it ensured every person on the team had the same picture of success in their head. If IT managers and stakeholders could hav...

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...iton are so important in each method and why one method isn’t better than another. Depending on the situation, you may choose to use more than one method but the preparation is the same.

Works Cited

Gottesdiener, E. (2008). YAGNI Your requirements documentation. EBG Consulting, Inc. Retrieved 23 December, 2013 from, http://www.requirementsnetwork.com/system/files/YAGNI.pdf
Sauter, V. (2007) Feasibility. Retrieved 23 December, 2013 from, http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/feasibility.htm
Ambler, S. W. (2011). Agile requirements modeling. Agile Modeling. Retrieved 23 December, 2013 from, http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileRequirements.htm
Usability.gov (N.D.) Evaluate your current site: Usability methods. US Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved 23 December, 2013 from, http://www.usability.gov/methods/analyze_current/index.html.

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