AGILE AND USE-CASES
"The one thing to remember about use cases is: tomorrow they are going to change." (Martin)
I found the above quote (and the article containing it) to be very revealing. The author''s view that the requirements, and therefore the use cases, are going to change on a very regular basis lends to his idea that there is no real need to formally build use cases with detailed steps. The details are not going to be the same tomorrow, so why bother. Documented use cases lead development teams to feel as if they have to build to the cases. Agile development leads teams towards development based on growing understanding of the problem. Time should be spent in gaining an understanding of the problem and producing software to address it, not in endless documentation of ever changing details and functionality.
So, the question stands, can an organization that does not use Agile development still effectively benefit from use case construction? Absolutely. Just because Agile development implies that this may be an unneeded step, doesn''t mean there is no benefit in it. I believe that there is great value in use cases, especially when given to the developers from the "horse''s mouth" so to speak. Its the customer, the user, who knows the fallacies and faults on the current process, and it is they who will know what they need to fix it. The issue with uses cases as I see it is there is to much emphasis placed on form, and not enough placed on function. Use cases should be functional, and what does it matter if its written using UML stick figures, with a pencil on a sticky note, or written in Kligon on an index card, so long as the information makes it to the developers and is incorporated into the application.
References:
Martin, Robert C.(2003) Use Cases -- A minimalist''s view. Retrieved from http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=6537
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