Adrian:

I tried to find references to force, artificial partitioning from my personal library.   I found that it is not directly mentioned in "Structured Systems Analysis and Specification" by Tom DeMarco (for Yourdon Press).   It must have been mentioned in the only other Yourdon Press book that I had "Mondern Systems Analysis and Design", by Ed Yourdon.   Unfortunately, I no longer have that book, so I can not readily give you specific page references.

In Section 3.2.3 in "Structured Systems Analysis and Specification", DeMaroc does talk about how what he calls "brute-force" partitioning (same thing as force, artificial partitioning) is too hard.  That is that is just to difficult to, as the first step, draw the the circles (ovals) and have the resulting model be complete. 

Force, artificial partitioning is an important concept popularized by (discovered by?) Yourdon and Associates and (as I previously stated) their intoductory course data flow diagramming started by explaining that the primary reason data flow diagrams where invented was to help analysts avoid the overhelming temptation to engage in such partitioning.

Tony

Adrian:

I downloaded a copy.   I searched through it, but could not find any discussion of forced, artificial partitioning.   Maybe Ed Yourdon has deprioritized the topic?   If he is not writting about it, then, no wonder why it is the Lost Secret Of  Business Analysis.

Make no mistake about it, forced, artificial partitioning used to be at the top of the list of what Yourdon and Associates taught.    Was forced, artificial partitioning an imagined issue, or a issue that has somehow "gone away"?    You answered that when you said that, with use cases, it is not possible to determine how many cases are necessary.  Others have shared with me simular opinions.  My job is to integrate across projects.   I see the results of forced, artificial partitioning all the time.   So, no, the problem of forced partitioning has not gone away.   It is just as prevalent as ever.

Does it not seem funny that almost nobody in the IT community today is even aware of what forced artificial partitioning is - and the need to avoid playing the old connect-the-boxes game?

Tony