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Subject:RE: Use Cases - NEED INPUT - PLEASE HELP From:"Wilcox, Rose" <rwilcox -at- ssqi -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 11 Jul 2005 09:56:54 -0700
I have created use cases for various systems in my role as a Business
Analyst. If you do them properly, they can be great for flushing out
the ins and out of the business & functional requirements by showing all
the ways people & systems are interacting with -- yes, using -- the
proposed software program.
Ideally, in this way, potential problems, decisions, messages, etc. can
be worked out BEFORE proceeding with the design, saving a lot of time.
The role of the business analyst can be to bring out these decisions
points which often need input from the clients and/or management so that
the development team can focus on the best possible design without
having to branch continually or worse yet, spend precious hours and
money going down a rat hole.
The best resource I found for writing use cases has been Alistar
Cockburn's *Writing Effective Use Cases*. It's a bit pricey for a
softcover, but well worth it if you want to bring the full power of use
cases to bear on your project.
Otherwise, it is true... use cases can sometimes be rat holes in and of
themselves if not properly applied.
When tasked to write a use case, I ask first to see if there are
standards in the environment. If the developers are already used to a
certain format -- the diagramming versus the written form, for instance
-- that needs to be adhered to. I believe in Rational and perhaps in
some other tools, use cases can be input into automated tools, but I
haven't used them yet.
As far as the ERP environment goes, I don't know of any specific
methodology that applies. If you are piloting the use cases yourself,
you will find that you have to ask yourself and perhaps your internal
clients a lot of questions to determine the best way to create the use
cases.
The "end users" of the use cases include the management, clients for the
software, but most of all the development team, so you need to have at
least an empathetic understanding of development and design in your
enviroment to create a usable use case. For example, will one lead
developer use the use cases and then parcel them out to staff
programmers?
Rosie
______________________
Rose A. Wilcox
Senior Technical Writer
480-586-2645
480-580-0530 (cell)
Rwilcox -at- ssqi -dot- com
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