I was reading Mike Cohn’s book ‘User Stories Applied’. He starts his chapter on gathering stories by pointing out that ‘Elicitation and Capture should be Illicit’.
Clearly, this is a play at words. But the idea is that (to him) ‘elicitation’ rather improperly conveys the notion that ‘requirements are out there somewhere and all we need to do is have them explained to us and then we can lock them in a cage.’
He prefers ‘trawling’, a term he says was introduced by James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson (‘Mastering the Requirements Process’). The reason for his preference? Trawling conveys the idea of a trawler (a boat that catches fish by dragging a large wide net behind it).
Its a confusing argument. If there is a word that conveys the capture of something that is ‘out there’ – exactly the image that Mike wants to get away from – it is trawling.
From Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms: “Elicit usually implies, pains, trouble, or skill in drawing something forth or out; it often implies resistance either in the person or thing that is the object of effort.’
‘Elicitation’ is far superior to ‘trawling’ when it comes to describing the process of gathering, extracting, and identifying requirements.
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