Tutorials -- Monday All Day

The tutorial aims to get you clear on the role of use cases in the project and requirements process, to know where they fit, how they look, how they don't look, how UML and various tools affect them, and how to adjust your writing style to get them to communicate effectively. In this full-day tutorial, we shall outline and then write a few use cases, correct some (genuine!) badly written use cases, and trade experiences on the subject. We will also see what not to put in use cases. The speakers will give both theory and practicum, for example answering the questions asked at OOPSLA 1998's panel session on use cases. Experienced use case writers will benefit from the exchanges with other experienced writers. Newcomers to use cases will benefit from the exchanges between experienced writers. Everyone should benefit from the peer discussion of the writing assignments and the combined experience of the presenters. This will be a highly interactive session.

Attendee Background: This tutorial is for the person faced with writing or editing a requirements document. No object-oriented knowledge is needed.

Bruce Anderson, Senior Consultant in the IBM Object Technology Practice, has been using use cases in his consulting work for several years. He has helped clients with requirements and modeling in the banking, insurance, petroleum and telecom industries. Bruce and Alistair both served on the OOPSLA '98 use case panel.

Alistair Cockburn founded Humans and Technology, designed the OO methodology for the IBM Consulting Group in 1992, and was special advisor to the Central Bank of Norway. He is preparing the book "Writing Effective Use Cases", and published the book "Surviving OO Projects". Use cases and other materials that support Alistair's workshops can be found at http://members.aol.com/acockburn .