Interviewing is normally the place most analysts start. The analyst will pick some key stakeholders of the project (on the customers side) and ask then targeted questions about the current and new system. A lot of information will be gathered in a very short space of time . Even though a lot of information will be gathered it is difficult to interview a large number of people. Interviews are difficult to plan so they fit in with everyone’s schedules and also can be time consuming.

Human nature plays a major role in interviews as well. Not everyone is good at being interviewed and as a result they may get nervous or even mildly hostile to the analyst. They may also try and build up what they do to try and impress the analyst or even their superiors. Not everything they say can be trusted so must be verified by using other methods or interviewing more people.

Advantages

• Large amounts of information can be gathered.
• You can respond to the person to query and response they give.
• Get detailed responses about key parts of the system.

Disadvantages

• Time consuming so only a limited number of people can be interviewed.
• Interviewee may not be fully truthful so their responses need to be verified.