Developers who effectively employ use cases deliver better applications--on time and under budget. The concept behind use cases is perhaps as old as software itself; they express the behavior of systems in terms of how users will ultimately interact with them. Despite this inherent simplicity, the use case approach is frequently misapplied, resulting in functional requirements that are confusing, cumbersome, or redundant.

In Use Case Modeling, experienced use case practitioners Kurt Bittner and Ian Spence share their tips and tricks for applying use cases in various environments. They delve into all aspects of use case modeling and management, demonstrating how development teams can capitalize on the approach's simplicity when modeling complex systems.

In this ready reference, readers will discover how to

• Introduce a development team to use cases and implement a use case approach

• Identify the key elements of a use case model, including actors; and the components of a use case, including basic flow, preconditions, post-conditions, sub-flows, and alternate flows

• Master the objectives and challenges of creating detailed descriptions of use cases

• Improve their descriptions' readability and consistency

• Prevent and remedy common problems arising from the misuse of include, extend, and generalization use case relationships.

• Organize and conduct a review of a use case model to realize the best possible approach

The book draws extensively on best practices developed at Rational Software Corporation, and presents real-life examples to illustrate the considerable power of use case modeling. As such, Use Case Modeling is sure to give development teams the tools they need to translate vision and creativity into systems that satisfy the most rigorous user demands.

0201709139B08062002

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 16 Ratings

Use Case Gold Standard - 2008-06-20
Reviewer Rating:
This is the gold standard, period. Yes, there are dozens of good books about use cases, but if you had to pick one, just one, then I would strongly recommend this over any other book.

I bought this book in 2004 and have continuously used it as a reference. I have used this book to mentor new Business Analysts and those that new to use cases.

If must choose a second book, then I'd recommend Writing Effective Use Cases, by Alistair Cockburn.

Most other books

Very good introduction and reference to Use Case modeling - 2008-04-01
Reviewer Rating:
I recently had to do the use case modeling for a new system and found this book. I also looked at a book by Alistar (I believe that's the name of the author) but it looked to overwhelming compared to this book. This book is easy to read and you can start creating your model right away and add more complexity as you read.
It includes partial examples of use cases for a system in the appendix but have full ones in their website.
One thing I wished they had gone deeper into is the use case 'extensions'. They do mention them but in a very limited way.
The appendix has a partial example of a use case model and states that the full example is online at www.usecasemodeling.com but it does not seem to be there, however.

Excellent book - 2009-11-01
Reviewer Rating:
This is the book I've looking for. If you need, like myself, to grasp a solid foundation about use cases, its nature, advantages, and to exploit its power to communicate and agree about the solution that the stakeholders and developers of an application need, this is the book for you.

Book arrived in very good condition - 2009-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
I'm reviewing this after some time, so I don't recall if I purchased this book "new" or "used", however, sometimes the used books are in better condition than the new. This book arrived in good condition and in a timely manner.

Example not complete - 2007-10-24
Reviewer Rating:
The Appendix section which contains the Example states that "All completed artifacts are available from www.usecasemodeling.com" however this website does not have any artifact. It just directs us to IBM website. Please correct this in your next revision.

The book is good.

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