Objectives

The objectives of the seminar are to:

• Learn the fundamentals of use cases and their applicability to effective systems development
• Learn the structures of use cases, the combination of textual and graphical elements that make an effective use case for requirements gathering, testing and training
• Practice writing, analyzing, and reviewing use cases for student-supplied or instructor-supplied systems

Seminar Content

Introduction

• Requirements Development
• Project stakeholders and their needs
• Eliciting needs and designing system functions
• What use cases do and do not do

Use Case Fundamentals

• Application domain
• System and Environment
• Inter-actors and Goals
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Context attributes (e.g., risk, priorities, history)
• Basic and Alternative Enhancements

Cases and Scenarios

Structure of a Robust Use Case

• Goal
• Risk
• Case conditions
• Triggers
• Basic Case Section
• Alternative Case Sections (testing, training, etc.)

Composing cases

Case Writing Rules

• Terminology
• Case conditions
• Action grammar rules
• Format alternatives

Basic and Alternative Cases

• Basic course elements
• Exception handlers
• Required selections and optional actions
• User-invoked interrupts

Checking Robust Cases

• Common mistakes and checklists
• Test design
• Perspective-based reading and paraphrasing
• Scenario simulation
• Glossary-based analysis

Effective Case Development Strategies

• Documenting user needs
• Actions – case names
• Result conditions – case and course conditions
• Incremental development and iterative refinement
• Levels of precision – informal stories to precise cases
  1. Who wants what?
  2. How do they get what they need?
  3. What might happen?
  4. How is it handled?
• The writing process
• Modeling current vs. new capabilities
• Reuse of use cases
• Review experiences
• Benefits, difficulties (including costs), and risks

Conclusion

• Summary, advanced exercises, resources for further study