Writing Effective Use Cases Free PDF

Writing Effective Use Cases [Paperback]

Author: Alistair Cockburn | Language: English | ISBN: 0201702258 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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Writing Effective Use Cases Free PDF
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Use cases have never been this easy to understand -- or this easy to create! In Writing Effective Use Cases, Alistair Cockburn offers a hands-on, soup-to-nuts guide to use case development, based on the proven concepts he has refined through years of research, development, and seminar presentations. Cockburn begins by answering the most basic questions facing anyone interested in use cases: "What does a use case look like? When do I write one?" Next, he introduces each key element of use cases: actors, stakeholders, design scope, goal levels, scenarios, and more. Writing Effective Use Cases contains detailed guidelines, formats, and project standards for creating use cases -- as well as a detailed chapter on style, containing specific do's and don'ts. Cockburn shows how use cases fit together with requirements gathering, business processing reengineering, and other key issues facing software professionals. The book includes practice exercises with solutions, as well as a detailed appendix on how to use these techniques with UML. For all application developers, object technology practitioners, software system designers, architects, and analysts.

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• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (October 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201702258
• ISBN-13: 978-0201702255
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

If there's one book that can be credited with popularizing use cases, this is it. Alistair Cockburn shares his applied knowledge in `Writing Effective Use Cases' and does so in a very digestible format. This is a handbook, a self-study guide - one full of real-world examples and exercises (with solutions even!) that any analyst or designer can relate to.
Use cases are a form of documenting systems requirements and behavioral design specifications. Written well, they offer benefits to all who participate in the development life cycle. This includes analysts, designers, project managers, developers, testers and even end users. Mr. Cockburn's book takes the reader through the writing process, highlighting both good and bad examples. He makes no claims that any of these examples are perfect. And that is perhaps the greatest element of his book. Commit yourself to read through all the examples. By the time you're finished studying them, you will find your own skills in identifying what makes a `good' or `bad' use case have been sharply honed.
Perhaps the one area this book does not explore in enough detail is the translation of documented use cases into user interface designs. Mr. Cockburn defers to `Software for Use' (another great book) for this. Even so, I would like to have seen some screen shots and comments about the user interfaces that were created from the examples provided. It would have helped tie the whole picture together. Translating use cases to highly usable interfaces is as much an art as it is a science. I believe this element of use-case driven development is best communicated in a live, face-to-face format. That's why organizations like Classic Systems offer workshops on this topic.

Finally! A book that corrects the numerous problems with use cases - or shall I say the mis use of use cases (no pun intended). Here are some common problems that this book will help you to avoid (there are many more, but these spring immediately to mind):
PROBLEM: A horde of analysts descend and produce reams of paper that are little more than stick figures and ellipses. They are, well, of little value because they are devoid of any real information and too often confusing. The other side of this problem is an unmanageable number of these "use cases" are produced with inconsistent detail, or an overwhelming amount of detail crammed into a single use case. RESULT: Developers have no clear idea about how to proceed and much rework is done to get the needed information (or developers do proceed and create something not envisioned).
PROBLEM: Use cases are considered to be the requirements specification. RESULT: Developers build something based solely on behavior, leaving out functions and features that customers want or need, and most likely not suited to requirements.
PROBLEM: [Related to the preceding] Test plans and test cases for systems built upon the shaky foundation of bad use cases cannot be properly developed. RESULT: A hit-or-miss test cycle that is almost certainly destined to miss a large number of defects (functional and operational).
Mr. Cockburn's approach to use cases will allow you to sidestep not only the more common problems associated with improper use cases, but hundreds more than will crop up unless the value and context of use cases in the development or project life cycle is understood.

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