Use cases have gained prominence as the analytical format of choice for many software development organizations. However, many companies struggle to write effective use cases and end up jeopardizing projects with inadequate and complete analysis.

Symptoms that your use cases might be in trouble include:

• Statements such as “The use case starts when the user clicks on the main menu”
• Shocking new discoveries of requirements late in the project’s lifecycle
• Vast numbers of “Exceptions” including “Exceptions to Exceptions”
• Badly fractured specifications that take all of the King’s horses and men to reassemble
• Design and Development teams using colored highlighters to trace logic paths
• Vague references to data

The vagueness that often accompanies use cases can be addressed by employing the discipline of event modeling to create and define use cases.  Event modeling results in robust and consumable use cases and avoids the most common pitfalls of use case adoption.  This talk will show how to use event modeling to develop a robust first-cut list of use cases, write clear and rigorous use case specifications, and better determine what should and should not be in a use case.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how business event modeling leads to a robust set of use cases.
• Know the pros and cons of various ways to document a use case.
• Appreciate the strengths and limitations of use cases for UI design.

Skill Level: Everyone