A Tale of Two Ontologies: The Basis for Systems Analysis Technique Selection

Experts in requirements elicitation use a wide variety of diverse elicitation techniques to understand users’ needs. Less experienced elicitation practitioners frequently use the same technique repeatedly, often because it is the only one they know or they do not know when to use alternative techniques. The authors are constructing a tool that aids less experienced analysts in selecting the most effective techniques for their project situation. Fundamental to the success of this endeavor is the creation of two unique ontologies. The first is an ontology of elicitation techniques such that if two techniques are suitable in similar circumstances, they will be located close to each other within the ontology. The second is an ontology of the situational characteristics that affect the selection of techniques. The proposed ontologies (1) provide a framework for practicing analysts to make more informed choices of elicitation techniques now and (2) are essential to our longer-term goal to assist novice analysts in the selection of the ‘right’ requirements elicitation techniques for their situation.