Communication Analysis as Perspective and Method for Requirements Engineering

Abstract

In this chapter we challenge the view of perceiving information systems as systems for storing, retrieving, and organizing large amounts of data. We claim that the main purpose of information systems is to support the communication that takes place between different actors in a work practice. We describe a communication perspective on information systems and its consequences for performing requirements engineering. In this perspective business documents play a prominent role. The perspective is operationalized into a method and an example from a case study is used in order to describe the method.