Jim,

 

I provided some feedback and change-tracked changes to the Word
template, mostly to simplify it and reduce the opportunity for bad
practices by analysts who are new to use cases
(https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=167924 ).

 

The excel-based approach doesn't seem like a very "elegant" solution to
the valid problem of shallow requirements management skillsets that you
pointed out ( I commented here
<https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=168275>
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=168275 ).  It also seems
to violate the "use simplest tools" philosophy.  Excel is more difficult
to version control, since it has no merge capability.  It lacks "the
power of plain text."

 

For a lot of new adopters, the paradigm shift isn't having use cases.
Lots of big lumbering projects with three binders of "the system shall
blah blah" requirements also have "use cases," but they treat them as a
kind of afterthought.  The UP paradigm shift is doing use case-based
requirements, where the use cases are the primary way that we express
the functional intent we have for the solution.  Treating use cases this
way is essential to enabling iterative development, because you can
incrementally refine a use case over time a lot easier than thousands of
disjointed "system shall" statements.  

 

So I'd suggest we point adopters in the right direction with a series of
use case examples at various levels of specification.  For example, we
might have a use case that's just "identified," then one with just the
basic flow and a few special requirements, and finally a fully-specified
example.  The purpose is to demonstrate how you can incrementally refine
the intent of the system based on immediate goals.  A classic example is
Craig Larman's "next-generation POS system" in Applying UML and
Patterns.  Maybe he'd open-source the examples?

 

Thanks,

Nate

 

  _____  

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Jim Ruehlin
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 4:41 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [epf-dev] Looking for Use Case Templates & Examples

 

Hello all,

 

We've been discussing how we can make writing use cases easier for a
wider range of practitioners, e.g. experienced analysts, developers
using use cases for the first time, old-timers who are used to
decomposing their requirements, etc. We think that offering a variety of
use case templates will help us in this endeavor, as long as we can
describe the best circumstances in which to use each template.

 

If you have any use case templates that have been useful for you, please
consider contributing them to OpenUP/Basic. Attach any templates you'd
like to contribute as a reply to this email and we'll consider them at
the February F2F meeting this Thurs/Fri.  

 

Examples of the two templates we're currently considering are attached
to the following bugzillas:

 

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=167924

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=168275

 

Thanks,

Jim

____________________

Jim Ruehlin, IBM Rational

RUP Content Developer

Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) Committer www.eclipse.org/epf

email:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

phone:  760.505.3232

fax:      949.369.0720

 

_______________________________________________
epf-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/epf-dev

Reply via email to