Data Collection Techniques
Data gathering is the interaction between the software engineer (in this case a business analyst) and the customers (including users). There are many techniques for gathering data, including interviews, meetings, observations, questionnaires, reviewing software, reviewing internal documents, and reviewing external documents. Read this section to differentiate between them and pay attention to the main advantages and disadvantages of each one of these techniques.
4. Temporary Job Assignment
There is no substitute for experience. With a temporary job assignment, you get a more complete appreciation for the tasks involved and the complexity of each than you ever could by simply talking about them. Also, you learn firsthand the terminology and the context of its use (see Table 4-2). The purpose, then, of temporary job assignment is to make the assignee more knowledgeable about the problem domain.
Temporary assignments usually last two weeks to one month-long enough for you to become comfortable that most normal and exceptional situations have occurred, but not long enough to become truly expert at the job. Temporary assignment gives you a basis for formulating questions about which functions of the current method of work should be kept and which should be discarded or modified.
The disadvantage of work assignments is that they are time-consuming and may not be a representative period (see Table 4-2). The choice of period can minimize this problem. The other disadvantage is that the SE taking the temporary assignment might become biased about the work process, content, or people in a way that affects future design work.