Patterns for Effective Use Cases (The Agile Software Development Series) [Paperback]

Steve Adolph (Author), Paul Bramble (Author), Alistair Cockburn (Author), Andy Pols (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201721848 | ISBN-13: 978-0201721843 | Publication Date: August 30, 2002 | Edition: 1

Use cases have become a very popular requirements-gathering technique, yet many developers struggle when faced with writing them. They grasp the basic concepts, but find that writing effective use cases turns out to be more difficult than they expected. One factor contributing to this difficulty is that the community lacks objective criteria for judging the quality of use cases. This new book articulates the qualities of effective use cases by applying the proven patterns concept of development to this requirements-gathering technique. The authors present a catalog of thirty-six patterns that help the reader become proficient at judging the quality of their (and other's) patterns. These patterns represent solutions to recurring problems that application developers have faced in writing use cases. Each pattern is presented with examples that help the reader understand the benefit of the pattern, and just as importantly, the consequences of ignoring its proper use.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Use cases have become an integral part of modeling software requirements, but many software developers are discovering that writing effective use cases is more difficult than they had anticipated. An understanding of the basic principles of use cases is not enough. Software developers need a source of objective criteria by which to judge quality and effectiveness.

Patterns for Effective Use Cases provides this set of objective criteria. Written by experienced use case practitioners, this book fills a critical information gap by presenting a pattern language that contains over thirty patterns, providing simple, elegant, and proven solutions to the most common problems in use case development. These patterns distill and define the properties and characteristics of quality use cases. As such, they facilitate the development of original use cases and provide a diagnostic tool for evaluating existing ones.

The book opens with a review of use cases and pattern fundamentals, along with a discussion of the requirements-gathering team. These patterns address the use case development process, the internal structure of use cases, and the relationships among use cases within the system as a whole. Examples of patterns include:

• BreadthBeforeDepth
• VisibleBoundary
• EverUnfoldingStory
• IntentionRevealingName
• PreciseAndReadable
• LeveledSteps
• InterruptsAsExtensions
• RedistributeTheWealth

Each pattern discussion includes at least one example demonstrating its real-world application, highlighting both the benefits of using the pattern and the consequences of not doing so. In addition, the book presents guidelines for the effective use of UML with relevant patterns.

Anyone involved in use case writing or requirements gathering will find Patterns for Effective Use Cases an indispensable handbook and reference.

0201721848B07302002

About the Author

Steve Adolph is a consultant with WSA Consulting, Inc., where he is responsible for helping clients develop their software teams to meet new challenges. He has been an inspirational mentor and consultant to a variety of software companies and has spoken at numerous seminars and workshops on the topics of the software development process, use cases, software design, UML, and patterns. His twenty years of software development experience span the areas of cellular telephone, mobile dispatch, railway signaling, direct-to-plate printing, and e-commerce systems in both large and small organizations. He is also the author of numerous software-development case studies and articles.

Paul Bramble is a Senior Software Engineer with Emperative, Inc., where he specializes in Object-Oriented software development. He has been using, researching, and writing about use cases and patterns since 1994. He has more than twenty years of software development experience and has worked for several different organizations in the areas of telecommunications, avionics, operating systems, mainframe computer manufacturing, and e-commerce. Paul is a Colorado native, and received his MS degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University in 1989, designing portions of an Object-Oriented distributed operating system for his master's thesis.

Alistair Cockburn is a recognized expert on use cases. He is consulting fellow at Humans and Technology, where he is responsible for helping clients succeed with object-oriented projects. He has more than twenty years of experience leading projects in hardware and software development in insurance, retail, and e-commerce companies and in large organizations such as the Central Bank of Norway and IBM.

Andy Pols is founder of, and senior consultant at, Pols Consulting Limited in the UK, where he is responsible for training and mentoring in the areas of project management, use cases, and Object-Oriented development. He first wrote use cases while working at Ericsson and has since worked on numerous projects in the areas of manufacturing, clinical trials, revenue management, retail, consumer electronics, banking, and e-commerce. Andy lives in London and hosts the Use Case Zone (http://www.pols.co.uk/usecasezone).

0201721848AB07302002

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (August 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201721848
• ISBN-13: 978-0201721843
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #851,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good advice but fails to address the real UC issues, July 28, 2003

By 

"83step" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Patterns for Effective Use Cases (The Agile Software Development Series) (Paperback)

This book attempts to take use cases to a higher level of science and in part succeed. Its plus points are discussions on management of use cases and the processes a team goes through in completing the creation / validation cycle. There's a lot of good sense here. Some of the patterns are useful. However, there's also a lot of regurgitation from various other texts and papers, some written by the authors themselves. And some key aspects are missing, aspects that are really important to industry and others that have concerned academia. Industry is not too worried about how to name use cases these days; that's easy. They want to be able to estimate how long it will take to build the system from use case points, for instance, or how to achieve forward traceability to the design and maintain traceability back to the requirements and business strategies (not the same thing exactly as the use case goal - which typically is not to stuff up and to make the principal actor happy). Academics are concerned too with effort estimation, with grammar and consistency checking, with dependencies and product lines, and non-functional requirements and whether use cases are at all to do with requirements in the first place and what they are no good for. Not whether we can build a little online booking web site - we can already do that. Though the book does not set out to answer these difficult questions, in its 200-odd pages, it ought to have, since this is what we really want to know about. So, though the book is excellent on what it does address, there's a lot of over kill in this. What's missing is what it does not address - all the hard problems we really need answers to.

44 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Overkill, November 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Patterns for Effective Use Cases (The Agile Software Development Series) (Paperback)

The fact that this book describes a "pattern" named PreciseAndReadable should tell you what you need to know. If you need to be told that use cases should be precise and readable, or that you should name them with active verb phrases (VerbPhraseName), or that they should describe things of value to the business people (UserValuedTransactions), or that you should involve those people in the process of writing them (ParticipatingAudience), or that you should stop writing them when they make those people happy (QuittingTIme), you'll certainly get some value from this book, but it's clear evidence that your problems run considerably deeper than this book will be able to address.

This represents 25 pages of fundamentally simple content spread across 200 pages, and in a thoroughly pretentious manner to boot. Avoid.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The How, What and Why of Use Cases, December 21, 2002

By 

Steve Berczuk (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Patterns for Effective Use Cases (The Agile Software Development Series) (Paperback)

Patterns for Effective Use cases is a must read if you need to develop for a software application. The authors describe what makes for a good use case, and make the points memorable with stories, and examples. If you have lots of experience writing use cases many of the patterns will cover things that you already know, but the way the patterns are presented make for an effective tool to help you teach others how to write a good use case. The pattern language format makes it clear that any single practice will not make for a good use case, you need to take a number together, otherwise you may have something that looks good at first glance, but just does not work.

I recommend this book for anyone who is learning to write use cases, or for experienced people who want a refesher course.