(BA002): Eliciting and Documenting Requirements with Use-Cases

Learn state-of-the-art practices for gathering and documenting user requirements based on the use-case approach. Over the course of a case-study project, trainees gain experience facilitating requirements-gathering workshops and creating textual use-case documentation with supporting diagrams.

The course covers what the Business Analyst needs to know to plan and execute requirements elicitation and management as the project progresses using the use-case approach. The course walks the trainee through an initiative starting from business use-case analysis that focuses on the business context through to system use-cases that focus on user-IT interactions. Trainees also learn advanced techniques for structuring use-cases (extending, generalized and included use-cases) that result in requirements documentation that is easy to revise as business rules change.

Available on demand
Location: Live Online Event or In-Person at your Location

Duration: 2 days
Presented in English by Howard Podeswa

This course is IIBA-approved and qualifies for 14 CDUs (Career Development Units) towards CBAP accreditation.

Contact us about delivering this course in your organization.

Learning Objectives

What is this training about and why is it important?

  • Use-cases are one of the most effective approaches to capturing, analyzing and documenting user requirements. The clear style and organization of use-cases makes them well-suited for deriving test cases and for communicating with both business stakeholders and developers.

  • Many BAs are unclear about the level of user requirements to capture at each phase of a project. This course provides clear, actionable guidance regarding how much detail to elicit from stakeholders at each point in the project.

  • User requirements can become hard to organize when there is a high number of system use-cases involved. This course provides tips for organizing use-cases into use-case packages.

  • Small changes to the business environment can lead to big changes in the documentation when the user requirements are not optimally organized. This course provides detailed instruction in the use of advanced documentation features (extensions, inclusions and generalizations) that help keep each fact in one place, making the documentation easier to revise when changes occur in the business.

  • Use cases are most effective when used asa facilitation tool: In this course, trainees gain practical experience acting as group facilitators as they progress through an integrated case study.

What you will learn and how you can apply it

  • Facilitate requirements-gathering sessions with Business and System Use-Cases.

  • Examine the impact of the project on the enterprise through business use-case analysis.

  • Create detailed textual requirements using a Use-Case Description Template.

  • Decrease software bugs and omissions introduced in the analysis phase of your project – by employing advanced use-case techniques that reduce redundancies and inconsistencies in the documentation.

  • Facilitate communication of user requirements between business stakeholders and the solution provider.

  • Model who-does-what with use-case diagrams.

  • Understand how use-cases are used in the context of iterative development.

  • Link other relevant material to use-cases – such as business entities, non-functional requirements and activity diagrams.

Course Topics Include:

Introduction to use-cases
  > History of use-cases
  > use-cases and the Business Requirements Document
  > Link to other technologies:
     – OO, Iterative development
• Criteria for selecting projects
• Facilitating Requirements – Gathering Sessions with use-cases:
  > Rules for conducting use-case workshop sessions
  > Preparation
  > Who should attend
  > Roles
  > Defining the Deliverables
     – When to best introduce and create:
     – Stakeholder Interest Table
     – use-case Packages
     – Role Maps
     – use-case Diagrams
     – use-case Text
• Analyzing the impact on the Enterprise
     – Eliciting and documenting end-to-end business processes with business use-cases:
  > Business use-case diagrams
  > Documenting business use-cases
     – Modeling business use-case workflow with activity diagrams
• Eliciting and documenting user requirements with system use-cases
  > use-case Description Template for textual documentation
  > Writing guidelines
  > How to number the requirements
• Defining the users of the system:
  > Role Map
  > Defining actors, “generalized” and “specialized” actors
• Working with stakeholders to discover and document system use-cases:
  > Triggers
  > Preconditions
  > Postconditions
  > Basic (Normal) Flow
  > Alternate and Exceptional Flows
• Organizing the documentation for maximum reuse with inclusion, extension and generalized use-cases
• Links to other documentation
  > Data dictionary
  > Entity classes and class diagrams
  > Activity Diagrams
  > Non-functional requirements
• Avoiding common errors
• Standard solutions for common situations, e.g.:
  > Customer IVR (Interactive Voice Response) identification
  > CRUD (Create/Read/Update/Delete a business object)
  > Login
  > Customer self-service
  > Geographical sub-sites within an e-commerce application
• Job Aids containing:
  > Templates
  > Tips
  > Examples
  > Glossary of technical terms

Audience

  • IT Business Analysts

  • Project Leaders

  • Facilitators who will be leading requirements gathering sessions

  • Business Users who will be explaining business requirements to software developers

  • Systems Analysts expanding their role into the business realm