Continuing with her investigation into requirements, Bobby considers observing people at A1 Car Hire to uncover more requirements.

Watching people carrying out tasks rather than just asking about them is a very useful way of getting information about the work practices and environment. Bobby hopes to get a feel for the situation and a better understanding of problems and difficulties faced by business users.

While stakeholders share lots of facts, figures, and maybe some of the issues, a lot of knowledge is taken for granted and they may miss sharing or articulating this.

To avoid any issues, she first gets an agreement from A1 Car Hire and the people she wants to observe. Being aware that self-consciousness might influence how people work, she emphasises that the observation was not a performance assessment but only to gain an understanding of the business processes and encourages them to work as they normally would.

Through formal observation, she watches people performing various tasks such as registering a customer, collecting customer details, or managing driver bookings. She takes notes and makes sure she doesn't interfere with anything.

Then she asks the staff member to carry out a specific task such as customer background verification or vehicle maintenance checks, and asks them to describe each step they perform.

This technique, called protocol analysis, helps her understand tacit knowledge in relation to that specific task, knowledge that is important but not verbally expressed. She reaches out to some of the key staff to arrange time to shadow them as they go about their work, either in-person or online.

This is also a powerful way to elicit tacit knowledge and capture additional details about what the role entails.

Applying observational techniques

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