Interactive Multimedia Storyboard for Facilitating Stakeholder Interaction: Supporting Continuous Improvement in IT-ecosystems

In order to stay competitive, elicitation and validation of user requirements are crucial tasks of a software system provider. However, reaching common ground among stakeholders and engineers is still difficult. In the special context of IT-Ecosystems, continuous improvement efforts call for non-standard requirements engineering methods. We propose a new kind of interaction between engineers and stakeholders that is based on multimedia technologies. Our interactive storyboard aims to facilitate stakeholder interaction and enable requirements engineering optimized for fast-paced situations with severe time limitations. Requirements and visions of new systems are documented in a multimedia representation. This representation is easy to create and requires no formal preparation for stakeholders to understand. Thereby, we aim to improve comprehension of requirements in stakeholder meetings and strengthen stakeholder involvement. The use of video, photo and audio acts as a catalyst for fast-paced stakeholder interaction.