Use One-on-One Interviews to Solicit Requirements
by Tom Mochal

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One-on-one interviews are probably the most common method of gathering business requirements. The techniques involves having an interviewer and an interviewee, although there are some variations, including having a scribe present to document the discussion and the requirements. Interviewing is basically just talking, although it is a discussion with a purpose. The interviewer must keep control over the discussion to make sure that the basic objectives of the interview are met.

Good interviewing skills take some practice. Sometimes you go in for an interview session, talk and listen for an hour, and come out with a good set of applicable requirements. Other times you may spend an hour talking to a person and not come out with any useful information. Some interviewees are good at organizing their thoughts and providing information to you in a manner that you can easily comprehend and document. Other interviewees are not as comfortable organizing their thoughts, or have a hard time expressing them and therefore need to be placed into a structured discussion. You will also find some people that are hostile or suspicious of the information you are gathering. No matter what the situation is, good interviewing skills can usually help you gather the information you are seeking. As you become more effective in gathering requirements through the interview process, you will also find that you become better at the other requirements gathering techniques as well. Although the interview process relies heavily on good verbal and listening skills, all of the other techniques do as well.

The following process will help the interview proceed efficiently and effectively and will help you gather the requirements in the shortest amount of time.

1. Prepare Ahead of Time. Preparation for the interview process involves reviewing all prior relevant deliverables, such as the Project Charter and any other business planning documents. The interviewer should prepare ahead of time with a set of basic questions that need to be answered. If possible, also prepare a list of alternate questions in case the discussion ends up going in a different direction than what you anticipated. Your preparation should also include an understanding of who the interviewee is and what he or she does. If you are talking to a project manager, he/she expects you will have questions as to his/her specific roles and responsibilities. If you interview a Vice President, he/she may be somewhat insulted if you to ask him/her who he/she is and what he/she does. 
   
2. Conduct the interview. When the interview begins, you should be ready to put your questioning and listening skills to good use. Once the interview begins, the interviewer should be flexible to react to the discussion and lead the discussion where it needs to go. However, there are certain basic techniques that will help get the session started off on the right foot and keep it moving forward successfully.
   
   • Explain the purpose of the interview and your expectations
     
   • Answer any upfront questions
     
   • Confirm the time period for the interview
     
   • Follow the interviewee's preferred sequencing of material
     
   • Ask your questions and listen to the responses 
     
     
3. Document the discussion. After the interview is complete, document the discussion and send it back to the interviewee for review. The purpose of the review is to validate that the interviewer (or scribe) captured the information correctly. This review has nothing to do with whether or not the requirements are valid and whether they will ultimately be approved for inclusion into the deliverables. Documenting the discussion for review also allows the interviewee to see all of the information in context. This review may point out items that are incorrect or missing, either because the interviewer missed documenting them or because the interviewee missed discussing them.

There are many techniques for gathering requirements on a project. One-on-one interviews are the most common way. People that fill the role of an Analyst on a project need to be very good at this particular technique.   

Each month, Tom Mochal presents techniques and processes for IT development projects.  Tom is the recent winner of the 2005 PMI Distinguished Contribution Award. His company, TenStep, Inc. develops business methodologies, including a project management process called TenStep (www.TenStep.com) and a project lifecycle process called LifecycleStep (www.LifecycleStep.com).