Towards a competency model for requirements analysts
Authors: Klendauer, Ruth; Berkovich, Marina; Gelvin, Richard; Leimeister, Jan Marco; Krcmar, Helmut
Journal: Information Systems Journal (2012)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2011.00395.x
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Requirements engineering is a software development discipline, executed by requirements analysts (RAs), that includes requirements elicitation, analysis, specification and validation. Its successful outcome is very often essential to overall project success. However, there is a lack of systematically conducted empirical research on the competencies of RAs. This paper addressed this gap by conducting 64 interviews at eight major North American and European financial services companies. Our qualitative research design follows an interpretive approach and uses critical incident technique. We develop a competency model, which specifies 16 critical competencies, and integrates contextual and situational factors as well as results variables. ‘Consulting others’, ‘Testing assumptions and investigating’ and ‘Explaining concepts and opinions’ were the most frequently identified competencies. This indicates that for an effective analyst, close interaction and communication with customers is indeed crucial – but of equally importance is the critical questioning of the expressed needs. Surprisingly, applying specific tools and advanced techniques did n…