Investigation Techniques

Objectives
 How to do research.
 Investigating and quantifying.
 Documenting the as-is.
Introduction
 A BA needs to do a background check
 Tools and techniques help BA to understand issues and aid in carrying out a
detailed investigation
 Know your tools and techniques include disadvantages and advantages of
each one and know which approach each one is suitable for (Waterfall or
Agile requirements elicitation approach), see Table 5.1 page 97.
 A BA must research about an organisation before starting on a project and go
through the following:
 Website
 Company reports
 Procedure manuals and documentations
 Organisation chart
Investigation techniques
Categorised into two:
1. Qualitative
One to one sessions (Interviews, shadowing)
Collaborative (workshops and focus groups)
2. Quantitative (focus is on gathering and analysing numbers in order
to draw conclusions; statistical)
Interviews
Aid in:
 Making initial contact
 Establishing harmonious relationships with managers and
stakeholders
 Gathering information about the business
 Discovering different stakeholder perspectives

Discussion point: What are the advantages and disadvantages of

interviews?
 Reading assignment: Read on
[1] Question strategy (Why,

Prepare before interview… what, when and where)

[2] How to conduct interviews
Pages – 77 - 79

Strategic level pf management – terms of reference (what

is being asked of the investigator); understand many

S
management needs, ensure investigation is aligned with
business objectives and strategy

Tactical level or middle level – unravel and

understand issues of performance and management

T control
Operational level – BA interviews people who
perform the actual tasks. These people can
accurately describe existing business situation,

OP identify problems and workarounds to deal

with current procedures.
Observation
 Good tool for gathering information about business environment and
work practices
 Best conducted at early stages of investigation

Discussion point: Can you think of any advantages and disadvantages?

Formal Observation – BA singles out and watches a specific task.

More techniques
 Protocol Analysis – Techniques reveals skills required to complete a
task. BA asks users to perform task and describe each step they
perform.
 Shadowing – follow a user for a day or two, taking notes on what a
job entails. (Useful at requirements definition stage)
 Ethnographic studies – (Think of the TV reality show ‘Tribe’ where
Bruce Parry visits remote tribes and lives with them for long periods
of time.) Ethnographic studies are expensive but useful for
understanding complex business systems. These studies can reveal
where power lies for example (organisational culture).
Workshops
 Collaborative
 a meeting at which a group of people engage in intensive discussion and activity on a
particular subject or project.

Discussion point – Advantages and disadvantages

 Some advantages include: BA gains complete understanding of issues and problems,

less time consuming, users are usually motivated.
 Some disadvantages include: getting together people can be challenging and time
consuming, some participants may dominate the discussion (think of EFF in
parliament), may be hard to fit everything you need to cover in one workshop.
 Read more pages 82 -83
Facilitating a workshop
 BA ought to learn how to conduct workshops.
 Prepare before hand to ensure workshop success. Some tips or
considerations:
 Objective of workshop – know what you are talking about. Break down
objectives if need be.
 Consider your audience – do they have the right level of skills
 Arranging suitable venue – you may to avoid venues that permit distractions
to your audience.
 Choose techniques that suite audience e.g. choose round robin technique of
participants do not like brain storming sessions.
Techniques employed in workshops
Techniques can be grouped into two: Discovery and Visualisations

Workshop
Discovery Visualisation
Round robin Process models
Brainstorming Rich pictures
Brainwritting Mind maps
Post-it exercise Context diagrams
Step-wise refinement Use case diagrams
Break-out groups Task scenarios
User stories

Visualisations – pictorial and diagrammatic techniques

Reading assignment: What is a hothouse workshop? (page 86)
Focus groups
 Usually used in marketing to measure impact of a new product.
 Small group (4 – 15 people) with a
 Common interest
 Group assemblies to discuss about a product before it is launched, or provide
feedback on a political campaign……
 Useful to uncover people’s attitudes (why are students unhappy with campus
Wi-Fi?), suggest future developments and directions
 Can be used an information gathering exercise
 Be sure to ensure that output of this techniques is measured against
organisation strategy
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages Disadvantages

Verify or clarify the results from surveys Moderator may be biased

Participants may not give their honest
Suggest potential solutions to problems and personal opinions.
identified Compared with surveys and
questionnaires, focus groups are more
Inform decision-making, strategic expensive, participants may need to be
planning and resource allocation compensated in cash or in kind.
May lack depth in covering an issue
Explain statistical data. Not suitable for obtaining quantitative
data
Scenarios
 Scenario: A description of a user’s interaction with a system.
 Scenarios help focus design efforts on the user’s requirements, which
are distinct from technical or business requirements.
Scenarios may be likened to ‘use cases’, which describe interactions at
a technical level. Unlike use cases, scenarios can be understood by
people with a non-technical background. They are therefore suitable
for use during participatory design activities.
 Reading assignment – Please read advantages and disadvantages
pages 87 – 90.
Prototyping
 A technique for eliciting, analysing, demonstrating and validating
requirements.
 A prototype is built to understand the requirements
 It is built on the currently known requirements
 By using the prototype client gets to get actual feel of the system. This allows
client to better understand the requirements of the desired system
 What are the disadvantages and advantages of prototyping?
Advantages and disadvantages of
prototyping
Some of the advantages and disadvantages include (See pages 91 – 92 for more:

Advantages
 Reduced time and costs
 Improved and increased user involvement

Disadvantages
 User confusion of prototype and finished system (users may get attached to
features of prototype which may be discarded
 Developer misunderstanding of user objectives
 Excessive development time of prototype. Development is supposed to be quick
but developers can lose sight of this fact with endless iterations taking place.
Quantitative Approaches
Quantitative
Techniques include (know advantages and disadvantages:
 Surveys or Questionnaires – need no introduction
 Special purpose records - These are not company records, BA decides format
 Activity sampling - BA wants to find out how user divides time of among
activities – how much time is spent filing documents…)
 Document Analysis – BA samples documents for review to uncover
information about organisation, process or system. Document analysis
supplements techniques such as interviews, observation, workshops. Take a
look at some of the questions a BA may want to ask when analysing each
document pages 95 - 96
Which technique to employ?
See table 5.1 page 97.

Questionnaires are unsuitable for eliciting requirements using the agile

approach. Why?
Documenting the as-is
 In order for BA to understand issues and business needs, the BA ought to document
findings.
 Diagrams can be used to document findings. Helps analyst to understand information
and root causes to problems.
 Five diagrammatic techniques used include:
1. Rich pictures – Gives an overview of the entire business situation, no fixed notation exists.
2. Mind Maps – Summarise information in a simple visual form.
3. Business process models – Swimlane diagrams, help to understand how a process works (Chapter
7)
4. Spaghetti maps – show movement and interaction of stakeholders in a particular environment as
they perform their particular tasks and processes.
5. Fishborne diagrams (Ishakawa Diagrams) – A problem-analysis technique. Identify problems and
discover their underlying causes. Exposes root causes of inefficient processes.
 Documenting techniques are covered on pages 96 – 101 of your prescribed text.
Fishbone diagram
Approaches to labelling spines:

1. The four Ms: manpower,

machines, measurers, and
methods
2. An alternative four Ms:
manpower, machines,
materials and methods.
3. The six Ps: people place,
processes, physical evidence,
product/service and
performance measures.
(Figure 5.8 pp 101)
4. The four Ss: surroundings,
suppliers, systems and skills.
Summary
There is no spanner, a BA needs various investigative

Tools / techniques and diagrams.