Service Elicitation Method Using Applied Qualitative Research Procedures - Advanced Design Approaches to Emerging Software Systems - page 2

Chapter 1

Service Elicitation Method
Using Applied Qualitative
Research Procedures

Ville Alkkiomäki
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

Kari Smolander
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces QSE, the Qualitative Service Elicitation method. It applies qualitative research
procedures in service elicitation. Service engineering practice lacks lightweight methods to identify
service candidates in projects with tight schedules. QSE provides a systematic method to analyze require-
ment material in service-oriented systems development with a feasible effort. QSE uses the procedures
of the grounded theory research method to elicit service candidates from business process descriptions
and business use case descriptions. The chapter describes the method with examples and a case study.

INTRODUCTION 1998; Sarker & Lee, 1999). Service-oriented com-

puting can provide a way to make great changes
in smaller portions by componentizing both the
business and the IT and by incrementally build-
ing on top of existing assets (Bieberstein, Bose,
Fiammante, Jones, & Shah, 2006; Cherbakov
et al., 2005). Transforming an enterprise into a
service-oriented one is a complex task and the role
of IT is no longer supportive, but has often a key
role in the change. Alignment between the busi-
ness and IT is the key towards a service-oriented

For enterprises, the promise of service-oriented
computing is to rapidly create low-cost applica-
tions out of reusable and loosely coupled services
(Cherbakov, Galambos, Harishankar, Kalyana,
& Rackham, 2005). This promise is tempting,
as the radical business process redesign projects
are risky and expensive (Jarvenpaa & Stoddard,