Either you know you know, you know you don’t know, you don’t know you know or you don’t know you don’t know? Come on, which is it?
As I have mentioned in earlier posts Requirements Elicitation is a complex task, full of knowns and unknowns. Let’s dissect what you know from what you don’t:
Spin, spin, spin the Wheel of Fortune!
Fact
When you know you know it is a fact.
Well, it’s a fact in your mind at least! Mrs. One Minute BA often has a different perspective to me and I have to admit I have my facts wrong (yes, it has been known!). Thus, facts must be documented as part of requirements package, e.g. as a requirement, business rule, constraint etc., and verified as part of the standard review process.
Question
When you know you don’t know there’s a gap.
Don’t mind the gap! It’s a good place to be, it means that you are aware there is something lacking and are able to control your destiny. Here you can do one of two things: make an assumption to fill it or elicit information to factualize it. Clearly the latter is preferable, but again document either so that others can accept or deny.
Experience
When you don’t know that you know you’ve lost it (and yes, maybe in that way – projects can drive us all a little crazy).
You knew it once. Perhaps it’s become so entrenched as the result of your experience that it has become tacit or maybe the fact never stuck in the first place. The former results in undocumented facts or assumptions; the latter may result in you asking the same question again, but it’s better to ask a question twice than not at all!
Fate
When you don’t know you don’t know you’re destiny’s child.
Is ignorance bliss? Or will fate deal a cruel hand? Since you never knew that you didn’t know or know that you needed to know, you haven’t asked any questions nor documented anything. Maybe it was on a need to know basis and this piece of information was someone else’s fact or fact missing in action waiting to be elicited.
Now that you know I know you know, you know that I know that you don’t have any excuses, so now know that the Wheel of Fortune turns into the Wheel of Justice!
(Suitably tongue twisted?)
OMBA
Filed under: Requirements Analysis Tagged: | #analysis, #babokEL, #babokRA, #elicitation, #management, #requirements
