TY - JOUR
T1 - Using multi-focus group method as an effective tool for eliciting business system requirements
T2 - Verified by a case study
AU - Wu, Robert M.X.
AU - Wang, Yongwen
AU - Shafiabady, Niusha
AU - Zhang, Huan
AU - Yan, Wanjun
AU - Gou, Jinwen
AU - Shi, Yong
AU - Liu, Bao
AU - Gide, Ergun
AU - Kang, Changlong
AU - Zhang, Zhongwu
AU - Shen, Bo
AU - Li, Xiaoquan
AU - Fan, Jianfeng
AU - He, Xiangqian
AU - Soar, Jeffrey
AU - Zhao, Haijun
AU - Sun, Lei
AU - Huo, Wenying
AU - Wang, Ya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Wu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - This research aims to explore the multi-focus group method as an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements for business information system (BIS) projects. During the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses plan to transform their businesses into digital businesses. Business managers face a critical challenge: they do not know much about detailed system requirements and what they want for digital transformation requirements. Among many approaches used for understanding business requirements, the focus group method has been used to help elicit BIS needs over the past 30 years. However, most focus group studies about research practices mainly focus on a particular disciplinary field, such as social, biomedical, and health research. Limited research reported using the multi-focus group method to elicit business system requirements. There is a need to fill this research gap. A case study is conducted to verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore detailed system requirements to cover the Case Study business's needs from transforming the existing systems into a visual warning system. The research outcomes verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore the detailed system requirements to cover the business's needs. This research identifies that the multi-focus group method is especially suitable for investigating less well-studied, no previous evidence, or unstudied research topics. As a result, an innovative visual warning system was successfully deployed based on the multi-focus studies for user acceptance testing in the Case Study mine in Feb 2022. The main contribution is that this research verifies the multi-focus group method might be an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements. Another contribution is to develop a flowchart for adding to Systems Analysis & Design course in information system education, which may guide BIS students step by step on using the multi-focus group method to explore business system requirements in practice.
AB - This research aims to explore the multi-focus group method as an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements for business information system (BIS) projects. During the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses plan to transform their businesses into digital businesses. Business managers face a critical challenge: they do not know much about detailed system requirements and what they want for digital transformation requirements. Among many approaches used for understanding business requirements, the focus group method has been used to help elicit BIS needs over the past 30 years. However, most focus group studies about research practices mainly focus on a particular disciplinary field, such as social, biomedical, and health research. Limited research reported using the multi-focus group method to elicit business system requirements. There is a need to fill this research gap. A case study is conducted to verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore detailed system requirements to cover the Case Study business's needs from transforming the existing systems into a visual warning system. The research outcomes verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore the detailed system requirements to cover the business's needs. This research identifies that the multi-focus group method is especially suitable for investigating less well-studied, no previous evidence, or unstudied research topics. As a result, an innovative visual warning system was successfully deployed based on the multi-focus studies for user acceptance testing in the Case Study mine in Feb 2022. The main contribution is that this research verifies the multi-focus group method might be an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements. Another contribution is to develop a flowchart for adding to Systems Analysis & Design course in information system education, which may guide BIS students step by step on using the multi-focus group method to explore business system requirements in practice.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149783741&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281603
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281603
M3 - Article
VL - 18
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 3 March
M1 - e0281603
ER -