Work Guidelines: Use-Case Workshop
Topics
The use-case workshop is an organized brain-storming
meeting. A wide range of knowledge needs to be represented:
- Customer requirements
- System design
- Unit design
- Rational Unified Process
- Testing
This means that the group will contain people with different backgrounds,
knowledge and experience. Try to keep the group small (less than ten). A regular
setting is to compile half of the group from the development team and the other
half from user representatives. In the middle of this is the facilitator. The
facilitator should play the role of a moderator – a catalyst for all ideas and
wishes.
Tools that you need are:
- Two large white boards (one is sufficient but two is better)
- Easel charts
- Tape
- Two colors of self-stick notes
- White-board pens (multiple colors)
- Pencils
- Walls on which to attach paper–preferably in a "war room" that
you can use and leave undisturbed for two or three weeks.
Try to identify who or what will use the system. Start initially with actual
people who will use the system; most people have an easier time focusing on the
concrete versus the abstract. As users are identified, try to identify the role
the user plays while interacting with the system - this is usually a good name
for an actor.
When identifying actors, be sure to write a short description for each actor;
usually a few bullet-points capturing the role the actor plays with respect to
the system and the responsibilities of the actor will help later on when the
time comes to determine what the actor needs from the system.
When defining actors, do not forget about the other systems with which the
system being designed interacts. The icon for an actor is misleading here - it
seems to imply 'person', but the concept of actor encompasses systems as well.
Focus first on finding the 'human' actors, though; most groups will do better
when they focus on the familiar first, then consider the more esoteric.
Don't worry about the structure of the use-case
model, or about relationships between actors; simply capture the people or
things which will use the system. Focus on identification, and be prepared to
find a lot of actors. Don't worry too much about filtering the list now; the
identification of use cases (see below) will
do that.
Ask this question: What are the roles in the organization that will use this
system? Draw a stick man for each role that is suggested, and write a name below
the stick man. Then list two columns of actors on the white board – one on
each side of the cloud or icon that you already drew. Sometimes it can be useful
to use the word role or user instead of actor.
Questions to ask:
- Who will use this system?
- What other systems will this system send information to?
- From what other systems will we receive information?
- Who starts the system?
- Who will maintain the user information?
You may get questions like "Why isn't Tom the actor? It's always Tom who
does that". You will then need to ask more questions to gain an
understanding of what Tom’s role is. The name of the actor should reflect the
role.
- What is Tom's role?
- Who else is also able to perform that role?
- Why does Tom have that role?
Many actors can be identified directly through their regular positions in the
organization. A position in the organization could correspond to more than one
role to the system. For example, Tom may be a regular depot worker as well as
the person responsible for reorganizing the depot to create space for new
products. Those two responsibilities may be two different actors to the system.
Some people will want to generalize to the extreme. They may suggest a User
as an actor – and then suggest that is the only actor we need. True – but
boring, and doesn't add much to the understanding of the system. Try to avoid
discussing this suggestion if it comes up. Note the User actor on the board and
then proceed to the next actor.
- Ask everyone if there is anything missing.
- Volunteer some bad suggestions. This way, the team can correct you and
explain the exact roles of the system.
- Always accept all suggestions – you can always remove duplicates and
non-actors later on. To criticize someone’s suggestions will just kill the
spirit of the meeting.
Defining the actors usually takes between 1 and 4 hours. The whiteboard
should now list many actors, but make sure there is still room to add use cases.
When the set of actors seems to be complete, it is time to start with the use
cases.
Erase the cloud or icon from the whiteboard, and start to identify use
cases. Focus on concrete use cases – avoid discussion about include
and extend relations. Draw an ellipse and
write the name for every suggestion. Draw arrows to the actors.
Use the fact that you don't know anything about their application as a
strength. The participants of the workshop need to tell you what the system is
supposed to do. You should ask a lot of questions about the system. When the
participants provide you with explanations, use cases will appear.
Some people can understand the concept of use cases right away, and some
people cannot. To put the concept into an easier perspective, get somebody to
draw a system view. A system view is an abstraction of the system. For example,
it can be a server with a database and a number of clients, or a number of
circuit boards with their special tasks marked out. This view is usually easy to
illustrate: one of the participants will generally take a whiteboard pen and
show how the system will work. The system view will help to make the use cases
extend from system border to system border, and will implicitly point at a
number of different system states. Ask questions about these states, and some
more use cases will appear. Check what will happen when different communications
die – this can help you identify alternative flows in the use cases.
If you are working with a technical system, the system view is often
something well-known to everyone and might be the best way to find actors. In
this case, you might let them draw the system view before you start asking for
actors.
If you are working with an administrative system, the system view may not be
as obvious to everyone. In this case, a graph describing the manual routines may
be more useful. The graph may describe how one business entity is moved from one
person to another and what they are supposed to do with it. To visualize the
process of order and delivery, the graph may show a schematic view of the
customer office, our office, the storage and the customer storage.
Make sure that both the use-case model and the system view/business entity
view are clearly visible to everyone. This is when having two white boards might
come in handy.
Allow the use cases to have long names. A recently identified use case may
have a name as long as a sentence – this will be a good start on the brief
description of the use case, and then the name will be shortened later on.
There will always be a number of use cases that appear to have parts in
common. Make sure everyone understands that this is acceptable for now. There is
no point in structuring yet, since we don't know enough about the contents of
the use cases. You should wait until after the flow of events has been outlined
before you bring up any discussions about use-case relationships.
When the group agrees that the use cases on the board cover the functionality
of the whole system, break for lunch.
Once you are back from lunch, review the results from the morning session:
- Look at each actor: What are
his/her tasks in this system? Task may be a better word than use case for
people not familiar with the use-case modeling technique.
- Look at each suggested use case: Do
you understand the value the user will achieve with the use case? If the use
case has a positive result, then the user will be more willing to do the use
case.
- Look at each suggested use case: Is the use case complete? Or is this just
a small part of something bigger?
Questions to ask:
- Every actor should have at least one use case. If not, it may be because
the actor is a duplicate (another actor plays the same role) or because the
actor is really not a direct user of the system. In these cases, if a
discussion of the merits of keeping the actor yields no strong reasons to
keep the actor, the actor may be removed.
Work with the use cases one by one, and create one easel chart for each use
case. Draw an ellipse and write the name of the use case at the top of the
chart. Take a pencil and ask the group to help you write a brief description of
the use case. A brief description should be about 1 to 3 sentences. Sometimes it
is useful to draw the actors connected to the use case. Try to leave about half
the paper empty for the next step.
During this work, you will find out that there are some things that everybody
thought were clear that are not actually clear at all. Refer to the requirements
identified as key user needs and
features in the Vision and try to
find if there are any requirements
on this use case.
New use cases will appear. Some use cases will disappear. Put the use case
papers on the walls. Try to organize them with one column per functional area.
(Don't use the whiteboards for this –they are needed for the system view and
actors and use cases.) If you can’t solve questions immediately, write them
down on a self-stick note and place them at the appropriate use case. Use one
color for questions.
When all use cases have an easel chart and a brief description, it is time
for the next mode. It is often wise to take some time discuss if this really all
the use cases that are needed.
The model you have created so far may be documented in Rational
Rose or Rational RequisitePro and
generated into a Use-Case Model Survey
report.
The way to start writing a use case is to structure the text first. There is
no point in sitting alone and trying to structure the text without first
obtaining input from the stakeholders.
Work with the use cases one by one. Write down the different actions in
order. Don't try figure out how things will look in code structures, loops,
for-while statements, etc. – just work with the basic flow of events, and
don't worry about alternatives. Enumerate the steps 1, 2, 3, 4, … To help the
group understand the required level of detail, you can say that you want 5 to10
steps in the basic flow.
Once you've agreed on the steps in the basic flow of events, walk through it
and identify alternative steps. Enumerate the alternative flows A1, A2, A3, A4,
…
During this discussion a lot of issues will be raised, many of which will not
be solved until you get to Analysis &
Design. Remember to write down all issues, together with any assumptions you
need to make along the way. Some of the issues need to be resolved soon so that
the Requirements Specifier can detail the flow
of events correctly, and some of them are things that you need to make sure are
resolved before you start Analysis & Design.
What you have on each easel chart now should be sufficient for the Requirements Specifier
to be able to detail the flow of events of the use case.
During this session, there will be several requirements
on the system that you may not be able to readily capture in a use case.
Typically, these statements have to do with general functionality, usability,
reliability, performance, and supportability of the system. Keep a separate
easel chart where you note these statements. They will form a basis for your Supplementary
Specifications.
Walk through the key Stakeholder Requests
and each feature in the Vision document
and verify that the use-case model covers them in the appropriate way. Discuss
which user needs or requirements are traced
to which use cases.
Take the Vision document and read the
first feature. Write its
identity on one (or more if needed) self-stick note (use a second color to make
it easy to distinguish requirements from issues). Put the note on the use cases
that fulfill this requirement. Later on, you can enter these traceabilities
in your RequisitePro repository.
There are always a number of requirements
that can't be connected to any use case:
- They can be specific requirements that have to be postponed to design –
put these requirements on one paper (design requirements).
- They can be general requirements that can't be connected to any use case -
put them on the list for the Supplementary
Specifications.
- They can be requirements that have been forgotten and require either new
use cases or changes to the existing use cases.
Spend a few moments to review the structure of the room: Are there use cases
with no requirements? Why? Is this use case not required? Or was this
functionality forgotten by the person who wrote the requirement specification?
(This is usually the case.) This situation has to be resolved. Is the customer
aware that he needs this functionality? Is he willing to pay for it?
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