Requirements Management

Tuesday, 7. June 2016, 11^h

Michael Birkner
Vienna Chamber of Labour
Susanne Blumesberger
University of Vienna

Research support services, common in modern academic libraries, require close cooperation with IT departments. The communication between libraries, research services, IT services and research communities is not always clear and does not always lead to the desired results. This lecture will refer to the two use cases to show how communication can function between those making requests and the IT services who fill those requests.

A short introduction into requirements management is planned, as is a role-playing game in which a request is generated by the use case (Susanne Blumesberger) and a technician (Michael Birkner) reacts to and repeats back the request as he has understood it. In addition, a requirements manager will present her suggestions for a better, more clearly defined request.

In this way, the technician will try to suggest a concrete solution for the requests generated by each use case, all of which will be submitted on a specifications sheet. It can be very difficult to clearly understand the wishes of the customer. Unclear or ambiguous wording on the specifications sheet can lead to misunderstandings. This can result in a technical application which does not meet the expectations of the customer. Without a detailed request specification, which minimizes the margin of doubt as to the intended goal or function of a requested application, there exists too much room for interpretation in the creation of a desired system. If communication between a customer and a technician is also minimal, it is even possible that a product is created which either cannot be used or cannot be used as intended.