A LifeLike and Groupe Bizness experience to train user requirements elicitation skills

User Requirements Elicitation (URE) is a critical stage in the development of software systems. Since it is communicative and interdisciplinary in nature, the process of URE implies a combination of soft skills and an active listening attitude, which can be trained only with the practice. In fact, despite a variety of techniques and approaches to URE are employed, and different methodologies are suggested to choose the best technique for the specific situation, there is not at the moment a systematic training method. In the paper, a behavioural simulator reproducing a lifelike URE conversation is presented, which was developed exactly to train URE skills. The effectiveness of the simulator was verified through an experiment, whose design, implementation and results are described.