Requirements Capture Using Use Cases

Revision: TE1803_20060318

Course Length:

3 Days

Course Description:

This 3-day course presents the use case technique which has become the norm for functional requirements capture in object-oriented projects, yet can be used just as successfully with procedural development projects. Using a problem-driven, iterative approach, students will learn use case concepts and how to actually write "useful" use cases. Numerous examples and a complete in-class case study lets students see how a concept is modeled, and then have the opportunity to immediately apply and test their understanding.

Who Should Attend:

This course is for business or system analysts, technical managers, software developers, and testers who need a common, practical technique for capturing requirements for software systems.

Benefits of Attendance:

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Recognize and understand the UML use case notation and semantics.
• Describe the iterative process for developing use cases.
• Describe the degree of detail needed to write successful use cases.
• Recognize improper use case descriptions.
• Write "useful" use cases.

Prerequisites:

Experience in requirements gathering, systems analysis, or system design is desirable, but not mandatory.

Course Outline:

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Iterative Development Process
  1. What is an iterative process?
  2. Why use an iterative process?
  3. Iterative vs. Waterfall approaches.
  4. Scheduling and Budgeting in an iterative process.
• Chapter 3: Requirements Definition And Use Cases: A Focused View
  1. Requirements ? Our Achilles' Heel.
  2. Multiple dimensions of requirements.
  3. Use Cases ? An Executive Summary.
  4. Why Use Cases alone are not enough.
  5. The "Big Picture" of Use Case development.
• Chapter 4: An Excursion Into Use Cases Development
  1. Identifying the System Vision.
  2. Identifying the Use Cases.
  3. Identifying the System Actors
  4. Developing the Use Case diagram.
  5. Writing the Use Case Descriptions.
• Chapter 5: Use Cases Pitfalls And Abuses
  1. CRUD-based use cases.
  2. Use case normalization.
  3. Treating steps as use cases.
• Chapter 6: Use Cases And Testing
  1. The role use cases play in testing.
  2. How QA can benefit from use cases.
  3. Use cases, scenarios, and test cases.