Simulating requirements gathering

One of the difficulties in teaching a project-based Software Engineering course for undergraduates is giving students experience with requirements gathering before they begin the course project. This paper describes a simulation of Joint Application Design (JAD), a technique used in industry to gather requirements from users. The simulation is a role-playing exercise in which students play the parts of both developers and customers involved in specifying a new software product. Each participant is given a script of behaviors to act out for his or her role and a set of specific requirements for the product. The participants must work out conflicts and ambiguities built into the simulation to produce a consistent product specification.