Creativity Techniques for Requirements Elicitation: Comparing Four-Step EPMcreate-Based Processes

Abstract

[Context and motivation] The Elementary Pragmatic Model Creativity Technique, a.k.a EPMcreate, is a method for creative requirements discovery. It includes 16 steps corresponding to all the possible combinations of two classes of stakeholders' viewpoints. The feasibility and effectiveness of the full 16-step process have been confirmed by a number of experiments. The need to reduce the number of steps was observed in the very first experiments run in 2003. To address that problem, a few years later, a four-step creativity technique, POEPMcreate (Power-Only EPMcreate), was defined and tested. [Question/problem] More recently, the general problem of downsizing EPMcreate to define lighter weight processes based on sub-sets of the 16 steps has been theoretically investigated. The theoretical analysis demanded experimental confirmation. [Principal idea/Goal] This paper describes an experiment applying and comparing two four-step techniques, POEPMcreate and a new technique, ROS-EPMcreate (Redundant, Odd Step EPMcreate), resembling traditional requirements elicitation with brainstorming. [Contribution] The results of the experiment, even if preliminary, seem to indicate that ROSEPMcreate is at least as feasible and effective as POEPMcreate. The results also give new insights and suggest issues to be considered in future experiments. The paper also offers Kano categories as a new way to evaluate the innovativeness of generated requirement ideas.