When I teach my courses on requirements elicitation, I’m always asked what tools business analysts should use. My answer surprises many people (after all, I’m a trained Computer Scientist and Software Engineer): don’t use computer-based tools during elicitation sessions. Why not, you may ask?
Well, for one, the tools inevitably crash, have quirks, and kind of get in the way. Plus, the resolution of most projectors is way too low for any kind of large diagram.
Whiteboards are much better — lots of space, great resolution, never runs out of battery, projector bulb doesn’t break, etc. When you are done, take a picture (even a cell phone camera is more than enough these days to get a good image), and then transcribe (and analyze) into a more permanent format using a modeling or requirements tool.
The real reason why I like whiteboarding is this one: it engages your audience. Give them markers, have them go to the whiteboard, have them make their own corrections. Suddenly it’s their model, their problem, their requirements. If you drive a tool, then you own the model/artifact.
In summary, use whiteboards to think, use tools to record.
