Interviews
Collecting Facts by Interviewing People
- Advantages:
- Interviews give the analyst an opportunity to motivate the interviewee to respond freely and openly to questions.
- Interviews allow the systems analyst to probe for more feedback from the interviewee.
- Interviews permit the systems analyst to adapt or reword questions for each individual.
- Interviews give the analyst an opportunity to observe the interviewee's nonverbal communication.
Notes:
The most important element of an information system is people. More than anything else, people want to be in on things. No other fact-finding technique places as much emphasis on people as interviews. But people have different values, priorities, opinions, motivations, and personalities. Therefore, to use the interviewing technique, you must possess good human relations skills for dealing effectively with different types of people. And like other fact-finding techniques, interviewing isn't the best method for all situations. Interviewing has its advantages and disadvantages, which should be weighed against those of other fact-finding techniques for every fact-finding situation.
By establishing rapport, the systems analyst is able to give the interviewee a feeling of actively contributing to the systems project.
A good systems analyst may be able to obtain information by observing the interviewee's body movements and facial expressions as well as by listening to verbal replies to questions.