Information Gathering Techniques
Information Gathering Techniques
Effective information gathering is the most basic perspective-widening tool an effective leader requires. Good quality information marks out the context in which the leader operates, creates the information patterns from which ideas emerge, and provides the criteria by which ideas are screened and assessed. When you successfully gather information and assess questions or problems, you will increase your first-level resolutions. As you perfect your assessment skills, you’ll enhance your problem-solving efficiency and effectiveness.
Various Information Gathering Techniques
• Review documentation
Documentation serves to clarify understanding, and perhaps most important, it provides the audit trail of the analyst. That is, it creates the records which can be referred to at some later date and which serve as the basis for future work and decisions. Good documentation precludes the need to return to the interviewee for a repetition of ground previously covered. Good documentation can be reviewed over and over until adequate understanding is achieved. The finalized documentation serves as a contract between the user and the data processing developer. In it the analyst has described the user's environment, the analyst's understanding of the user's needs and requirements, and with the proposal for a future environment, the analyst's description of the system to be designed and built by the developers. With the user's sign-off, or approval of these documents, a contract is created between the two. Barring unforeseen changes in the business environment, the problems described in the documentation will be rectified and the environment proposed will be the one built and installed for the user.
• Observe
Observation reviews the information environment in which information user works in order to create a view of how information fits into the user’s work processes. It helps to watch follow and record activities as they are performed. It
Effective information gathering is the most basic perspective-widening tool an effective leader requires. Good quality information marks out the context in which the leader operates, creates the information patterns from which ideas emerge, and provides the criteria by which ideas are screened and assessed. When you successfully gather information and assess questions or problems, you will increase your first-level resolutions. As you perfect your assessment skills, you’ll enhance your problem-solving efficiency and effectiveness.
Various Information Gathering Techniques
• Review documentation
Documentation serves to clarify understanding, and perhaps most important, it provides the audit trail of the analyst. That is, it creates the records which can be referred to at some later date and which serve as the basis for future work and decisions. Good documentation precludes the need to return to the interviewee for a repetition of ground previously covered. Good documentation can be reviewed over and over until adequate understanding is achieved. The finalized documentation serves as a contract between the user and the data processing developer. In it the analyst has described the user's environment, the analyst's understanding of the user's needs and requirements, and with the proposal for a future environment, the analyst's description of the system to be designed and built by the developers. With the user's sign-off, or approval of these documents, a contract is created between the two. Barring unforeseen changes in the business environment, the problems described in the documentation will be rectified and the environment proposed will be the one built and installed for the user.
• Observe
Observation reviews the information environment in which information user works in order to create a view of how information fits into the user’s work processes. It helps to watch follow and record activities as they are performed. It