Class Diagram

This article covers examples of how tools are becoming extremely important in today’s world for Business Systems Analysts; continuous learning and exploration of various tools are becoming indispensable to work efficiently and contribute towards the team success.  As more and more new technologies/tools arrive in the market, from a BSA perspective being able to appropriately understand and use them will not only emphasize the value of the BSA role, but also the force the change in mindset to align more towards the Agile way which is the common forte nowadays.

Visual analysis models provide a powerful set of tools that let business analysts depict system information at various levels of abstraction. These models serve as an aid to understanding, as well as an aid to communicating. Alas, I fear that modeling is somewhat of a neglected practice. I believe modeling is an essential skill every BA should master. Here’s why.

There are various schools of thought about how to define terms, some arising from professional terminologists and academia. But those approaches are often relatively arcane and not well-suited to everyday business practice.

Definitions with subtle IT or ‘data’ bias are an anathema to effective communication with business partners. Good business definitions are oriented to what words mean when used by real business people talking directly about real business things.

The UML Class Diagram, sometimes known as the Static Structure Diagram, shows the dependencies and persistent associations between object classes.

This is a complete example of a Business/Systems Analysis Model using UML and including: Use Cases, Activity Diagrams, Context Diagram, and more.

CBM Analyst is a simple and inexpensive way to implement business modeling. Business analysts may also choose to upgrade their business modeling solution to No Magic’s Cameo Business Modeler Plugin. The No Magic professional services team is ready to assist you in building and deploying a consistent business modeling solution.

In writing a business requirements document (BRD), the business analyst needs to document who can access the solution (assuming software) and what data can be created, updated, read, and deleted (CRUD). In other words, a security model that a security analyst can build access profiles with the appropriate privileges.  This article provides the business analyst a method for documenting a security model in the BRD based on information extracted from Use Case and Class models

Today’s letter is “C” – for Class Diagrams. Business Analysts use Class Diagrams to help them discover ‘structural’ business rules and to document them in a visual form that is readily understood by developers.  What is a structural rule?

While most business analyst roles don't explicitly require static modeling expertise, developing a better understanding of static modeling concepts can be a measurable forward step for business analysts seeking to develop new competencies. Such skills can be useful in many aspects of the BA work, from obtaining a better understanding of stakeholders' information needs, to documenting those needs in unambiguous ways and communicating them more effectively to the technical team.

“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 13 diagrams are of most relevance for us and how they fit together...

Author: Jan Kusiak

As a software architect and developer I’ve used Enterprise Architect (EA) from Sparx Systems (www.sparxsystems.com) for a number of years. In that time I’ve spent considerable time and energy trying to get our business analysts to do the same. While I’ve had some success I must admit it’s been an uphill battle. I suspect this is partly because EA is often seen as a technical person’s tool. And that’s not altogether surprising.

• Enterprise Architect – the name itself is completely misleading. EA is not only for people with the title ‘Enterprise Architect’. It’s for the entire project team, from BA’s to Testers and even for Clients.
• User Interface – for developers the user interface of EA is extremely familiar and intuitive. It looks like a lot of the tools they use already. For non-technical users more familiar with tools like Microsoft Office it is somewhat more intimidating.

So, if you’re a Business Analyst looking for a tool that can help you do your job more effectively then read on.

UML class diagrams show the classes of the system, their inter-relationships, and the operations and attributes of the classes. Class diagrams are typically used, although not all at once, to: Explore domain concepts in the form of a domain model Analyze requirements in the form of a conceptual/analysis model Depict the detailed de...

UML 2 class diagrams are the mainstay of object-oriented analysis and design. UML 2 class diagrams show the classes of the system, their interrelationships (including inheritance, aggregation, and association), and the operations and attributes of the classes. Class diagrams are used for a wide variety of purposes, including both conceptual/domain ...

Structure diagrams in general Structure diagrams show the static structure of the system being modeled. focusing on the elements of a system, irrespective of time. Static structure is conveyed by showing the types and their instances in the system. Besides showing system types and their instances, structure diagrams also show at least some of the ...