Validation of the Effectiveness of an Optimized EPMcreate as an Aid for Creative Requirements Elicitation

[Context and Motivation] Creativity is often needed in requirements elicitation, and techniques to enhance creativity are believed to be useful. [Question/Problem] This paper describes a controlled experiment to compare the requirements-elicitation effectiveness of three creativity enhancement techniques: (1) full EPMcreate; (2) Power-Only EPMcreate, an optimization of full EPMcreate; and (3) traditional brainstorming. [Principal ideas/Results] Each technique was used by teams of students each of which applied its technique to generate ideas for requirements for enhancing a high school’s public Web site. [Contribution] The results of this first experiment indicate that Power-Only EPMcreate is more effective, by the quantity and quality of the ideas generated, than full EPMcreate, which is, in turn, more effective than brainstorming.