When it comes to needs research, sometimes empiricism can be a bad thing.
It is often said that empiricism kills people, but when doing demand research, empiricism is not necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, the accumulation of work experience in the software industry, on the one hand, is the accumulation and improvement of technical ability, and on the other hand, the accumulation and improvement of business understanding ability. Especially if you have accumulated enough experience in a certain industry, you can also become a new direction for programmers to improve and upgrade, and a business expert.
If you participate in many large-scale industry projects, you will not only have an overall understanding of the industry as a whole, but also have a deeper understanding of many business details through project development, and sometimes even more in-depth and comprehensive than user understanding.
At this time, in the process of research and communication with users, it is necessary to make full use of these advantages, guide users' thinking, and obtain really important and useful information. When the user realizes your understanding of the system and the industry, they will have the intention to communicate with you further, and the explanation will become clearer and clearer, rather than more confusing.
And if users understand and believe that you have a deeper understanding of the industry and business, they will believe more of your business processes, ideas and means of content transformation. In this way, especially in information systems, business process transformation activities It is possible to carry out and obtain the support of users.
Therefore, in demand research, business and industry experience is very important. You communicate with users, and users express their understanding of the industry and business. If you can understand it, or if you can make better suggestions, users will definitely feel more at ease. If you don’t even know many industry-specific terms mentioned by users Therefore, it is estimated that users are not in the mood to continue talking to you.
Previously, the departmental project team I was in was working on projects in the coal mining industry and production scheduling. Another department of Party A proposed to implement the business process of this department with a computer software system, so it went to do a preliminary communication and investigation of the system with the user. None of the project team has any business experience in this department. Fortunately, the company I worked for had maintained a large-scale software project. With more than one year of maintenance experience, not only the technical ability has been greatly improved from the level of entry for newcomers, but also I also have a certain understanding of the industry business corresponding to the project. It happens that the business of this department can be regarded as a branch of the large project. Therefore, in the process of the conversation, many business contents, processes and terms proposed by the user can be dealt with in the past. Not to be cold.
In this way, when conducting demand research, it is best to have members have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the industry business. If the conditions do not allow, you should also collect more information in the early stage, check similar industry systems, and it is not difficult to obtain basic information on the Internet today. At least, don’t be confused by the various terms that users will use water.
Of course, the application of empiricism should not be excessive. After all, under the overall industry norms, each specific project has its own unique content. At this time, don't take it for granted to analyze and design. In the big aspect, empiricism is very important. It is helpful, in terms of details, we still need to explore and understand more.