What Is The Use Of Technique Of Ethnography?

ETHNOGRAPHY:
Ethnography is an observational technique that can be used to understand social and organizational requirements. An analyst immerses himself or herself in the working environment where the system will be used. The day-to-day work is observed and notes made of the actual tasks in which participants are involved. The value of ethnography is that it helps discover implicit system requirements which reflect the actual rather that the formal process in which people are required.
People often find it very difficult to articulate details of their work because it is second nature to them. They understand their own work but they may not understand its relationship to other work in the organization. Social and organizational factors which affect the work but which are not obvious to individuals may only become clear when noticed by an unbiased observer.

Suchman ( 1983) used ethnography to study office work and found that the actual work practices were far richer more complex and more dynamic than the simple model assumed by office automation systems.

Ethnography is particularly effective at discovering two types of requirements:-

1-Requirements that are derived from the way in which people actually work together than the way in which process definitions say that  they are ought to work.

2-Requirements that are derive from the cooperation and awareness of other people's activities.