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» FEATURED: Document Decisions Separately and Explicitly – A Proposed Use Case Scenario Best Practice

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Document Decisions Separately and Explicitly – A Proposed Use Case Scenario Best Practice

This article proposes a use case best practice technique: Always document decisions separately and explicitly in use case scenarios. This practice assists the business analyst in identifying where alternate and exception paths may be needed.This is similar to how decisions and resulting gateways are documented in Business Process Model and Notation...

» FEATURED: Putting Systems Analysis “Into Context” using the Context Diagram

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This article is all about putting your systems analysis into context; literally and metaphorically. It’s all about drawing and interpreting the not-quite-UML Context Diagram that is sometimes referred to as the System Context Diagram.

» FEATURED: Use Case Points: an analysis phase estimating technique

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Use Case Points: an analysis phase estimating technique

Use Case Points are used as an analysis phase technique for estimating software development. Assuming the Business Analyst (BA) composes system use cases for describing functional requirements, the BA can use this technique for estimating the follow-on implementation effort. This article reviews the process of estimating the follow-on development e...

» FEATURED: The structure of business analysis documents

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The structure of business analysis documents isn't a commonly discussed topic. This article will show what documents are produced by a BA and the main sections they contain. These are the main documents produced by a BA over the course of a project...

» FEATURED: Use Cases and Business Rules: Can They Work Together?

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Use Cases and Business Rules: Can They Work Together?

There is much written today about separating business rules from other dimensions of automated business systems. Without proper separation, they operate in enterprises without a great deal of thought given to them. Ironically, they may be the most important dimension because they represent important business thinking behind processes, use cases, fo...

» FEATURED: From Research to Implementation: Use Case Diagrams – Usage and Benefits

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From Research to Implementation: Use Case Diagrams – Usage and Benefits

Some people use them. Some people don't use them. Some people create them using sophisticated tools. Some use basic drawing programs. As part of the Unified Modeling Language, Use Case diagrams are often the starting point for many software projects. However, questions about Use Case diagrams still linger in the minds of many Business Analysts...

» FEATURED: Use Case Recycling by Extracting Business Rules

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Have you ever thought the following thought while describing business processes? A decent percentage of the work business analysts (BAs) do is repetitive in nature. Business rules define the various subject matters, different businesses, or just differences in doing business. Just recently, I have again used a use case approach to a business proces...

» How to REALLY engage your stakeholders during use case modeling

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In this article, I'll be discussing some other requirements gathering methods that complement use case modeling and should be used to ensure your requirements gathering goes swimmingly. In particular, I'll be mentioning storyboards, wireframes and prototypes. I'll also cover what level of quality and detail you should adopt when applying these ...

» UML - Business Context

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“Where does UML fit?” is a common question among new (and not so new!) business analysts. We all know that the M stands for modelling but beyond this, perceptions start to differ. In its current form (V2.0) UML consists of 13 diagram types all of which provide a different view of a system. In this article we’ll take a brief look at which of the...

» Complex Requirements On an Agile Project

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The real world is a complex place, resulting in complex requirements for any system that has to work there. This is true regardless of development paradigm. Although "agile in the small" methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) have done much to show us how to improve our approach, too many people have thrown out the requirements ma...

» FEATURED: Tracing Corporate Strategy to a Line of Code

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One of the issues high on the agenda of many CIOs is to align IT efforts with the company’s strategic goals. But how you do trace a line of code back to the strategic goal that caused it to be written? If we’re able to do this then, and only then, can it be said that IT is aligned with the business strategy. In most organisations the strategy u...

» Exploiting use cases to improve test quality

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Test organizations can realize significant gains in test quality by harnessing the power of use cases. For years, developers and business analysts have employed use case models to capture requirements. Test organizations can greatly benefit by using these same use case techniques. Well-constructed use cases provide value to testing efforts in terms...

» What Are Use Case Studies?

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A use case study is designed to describe a situation in which the program is being utilized by the end user. It will tell a story of sorts describing how the program works and the input of the user. It does not tell how the program was developed. The details of the programming are not included in the use case study. You are trying to express the co...

» From Use Case Diagrams to Context Diagrams

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As long as practitioners recognize that use case diagrams are optional and iconic (as opposed to schematic), they shouldn't have problems. The diagrams are useful, for example, on whiteboards as a way of sketching and framing an agenda while people are writing up and reviewing use case detail on index cards. The trouble starts, however, when pr...

» Use Cases: Best Practices

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A whitepaper written by requirements expert Ellen Gottesdiener of EBG Consulting (www.ebgconsulting.com) for IBM/Rational Software. As an analyst, you have the crucial task of defining the requirements for software that is to be built or acquired. Your task is crucial for a number of reasons. If software teams fail to define excellent requirements...

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Business Analyst Articles: Business Analysis & Systems Analysis

Entries for the 'Use Cases' Category

Join the Premier Community for Business Analysts, Business Process Professionals, Systems Analysts, Data Analysts, and more…

Business Analyst Articles: Business Analysis & Systems Analysis

Entries for the 'Use Cases' Category

Join the Premier Community for
Business Analysts, Business Process Professionals,
Systems Analysts, Data Analysts, and more…