Insightful illusions: requirements gathering for large-scale groupware systems

Large-scale, organization-wide groupware systems are high risk development efforts. Requirements gathering and early evaluation are constrained by the need to attain a critical mass of users and content. One approach to mitigate this risk is to employ Wizard of Oz style system simulations during the requirements gathering phase. While this method has historically been used to test quasi-functional system prototypes, we have found it to be a useful method for assessing organizational feasibility.