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contain detailed requirements. The vendor needs to ensure that the requirements
spelled out are complete and adequate to carry out the work. Therefore, gathering
is used more extensively than elicitation.
3.8 Elicitation and Gathering in Real Time Software
Development Projects
Real time software, embedded software and firmware are utilized in controlling
some sort of hardware. Real time software could run on computers while embedded
software and firmware are usually on chips. These projects differ from the projects
that produce commercial business process software. For one thing, these software
products have very stringent constraints on usage of resources (CPU, RAM, and
storage) than in commercial software products. Second, the response time
requirements are very critical. The tolerance allowed in the specification of response
times is very narrow. Those response times must be met. The requirements come not
only from the end user but also the agencies that supply the hardware on which the
software resides or functions. Elicitation of requirements from the users as well as
the hardware suppliers also need to be carried out. Study of catalogues, product
specifications, and component literature is also of paramount importance in cap-
turing the requirements. Sometimes, the products using this kind of software are in
fiercely competitive markets. Examples are cars, washing machines, entertainment
products like, TVs, DVD players, and set top boxes. In these products, even the cost
(money) becomes a constraint and a requirement, which needs to be met by the
product. By making the software costlier, the product may lose to competitors in the
market as total product cost rises. And missing a requirement could cause the
product to lose out in the market on the features front. So, capturing project
requirements in these projects is a very delicate balancing affair between capturing
comprehensive project requirements and the ability to meet the constraints. Gath-
ering assumes more importance than eliciting in these projects.
3.9 Elicitation or Gathering?
I have come across a misconception especially among software development
fraternity that elicitation is the only technique for capturing project requirements.
The reality is different. Both are used extensively in the industry. In most scenarios
of requirements management, both elicitation and gathering are used in varying
degrees. Both are equally important elements of capturing project requirements for
the proposed software product. In the case of in-house project development,
elicitation is more extensively used to capture project requirements than gathering.
In outsourced project development, the requirements are usually supplied to the
 
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