The interview has long been a part of the system professional's repertoire of elicitation techniques, used extensively in both requirements analysis and knowledge acquisition. Unfortunately, although interviewing is a widely recommended elicitation technique, the literature offers little in the way of theoretically grounded support or advice on exactly how the interview should be conducted and what format should be used. This paper reports the findings of a study that compared the efficiency and effectiveness of the cognitive interview with the standard information requirements interview in an experiment using reference librarians as interviewees. The cognitive interview was found to be both more effective and more efficient than standard interviewing techniques in eliciting episodic knowledge from reference librarians. Use of the cognitive interview resulted in a richer recall, in terms of both breadth and depth, of details relevant to the task domain.
The role of information technology (IT) has changed from being merely a tool for processing transactions to a weapon that can affect an organization's competitive position. Because of this change, previous organizational structures for IT groups may no longer be adequate. Organizational theorists have shown that the appropriate structure is influenced by the organization's external environment and strategy. This study contributes toward a better understanding of IT organization by exploring the relationship between the organizational structure of IT groups and the effectiveness of IT support in two companies with similar IT environments. Specifically, the study uses: (1) qualitative analysis to examine IT organizational structure in two very similar companies; (2) quantitative analysis to determine which company has more effective IT support; and (3) an expert panel to identify those differences in IT organizational structure that appear to facilitate effective IT support. Several propositions from these findings are presented and discussed.