Abstract:

During their study, students in the field of information and communication technology develop different skills important for their future jobs. Teachers aim to create an educational situation as similar to the future job circumstances. But, some activities from real life are hard to simulate in educational environment. One of the jobs students train for is information system design. In the process of information system design users have an important role. They have the knowledge needed to build the information system. Business process analysts use different techniques to elicit this knowledge. One of the techniques used for knowledge elicitation is interviewing. But real users do not have a lot time to spend it with students who train this role. Therefore, students need to be prepared as much as possible when interacting with real users during their training sessions.

In this paper, the process of advancing through the interview towards process model is presented as an interviewing model. The presented model can be used to enhance students’ experience of interviewing users, but also to support business analysts in their jobs.

This model combines communication skills with knowledge of business process modelling. Its application results in Data Flow Diagrams, which are an important step of information system development and cannot be skipped. Information system designer's knowledge of process modelling together with skillful communication with users in business analysis and process modelling are integral parts of the method and should be included in information system developers training. Contribution of this paper is the described model, whose application results in the following features:
a) data flow diagrams are made quickly,
b) communication between the analyst and the user is continuous,
c) the analyst is never short of questions,
d) the user actively contributes to creating a model,
e) obtained model is one of the possible solutions,
f) in models, the analyst applies names assigned by the user, which improves the readability and ease of use.

If applied in practice and followed step by step, instructions prescribed by this interviewing model should result with a complete process model of the system.

Keywords:

Interviewing, Information system, Process model, Data Flow Diagram, Education.