Requirements Gathering Workshops
How do you facilitate Requirements Gathering Workshops?
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Requirements Gathering Workshops provide an opportunity for individual perspectives to be shared, refined, and combined in ways that will benefit Business Requirements. Participants walk away with a better understanding of the issues and may feel a stronger sense of commitment to the project. In order to avoid any bias in directing the workshop, bring in an outside expert as your facilitator. Most workshops last no more than one or two days. The shorter the workshop, the easier it is to keep everyone focused on the task at hand. By the same token, enough time must be allotted for the Business Requirements to be identified and for participants to reach consensus. Successful Requirements Gathering Workshops encourage the active participation of everyone in attendance. Facilitators and other speakers may present certain information throughout, but the ultimate goal of the workshop activity is to engage the participants to identify their own needs. Facilitators achieve this result by asking participants to break off into smaller groups to answer specific questions that relate to the issue at hand. Groups may tackle the same question as the others or deal with variations on the same question. Either way, the facilitator sets a time limit on discussion. Each group is responsible for assigning someone to record the individual member's responses to the assigned question. Another member may keep an eye on the deadline as timekeeper. These breakout sessions generally involve intense brainstorming, as ideas are tossed "into the ring" and discussed by group members. The raw ideas are consolidated and refined into a single presentation to which all group members agree.
At the end of the allotted time, each group's responses are presented by that group's chosen representative. Individual members may be called upon to clarify certain points of the presentation, and other groups are invited to ask questions. Summary
Successful Requirements Gathering Workshops encourage the active participation of everyone in attendance. Participants break off into smaller groups to answer specific questions that relate to the issue at hand. The activity involves intensive brainstorming and requires individuals to act as a group to reach consensus.
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