Patterns for Effective Use Cases: Unleashing Your System's Value

Use cases are a powerful tool for modeling how a system delivers value by telling stories about how actors interact with it. User stories are an excellent tool for delivering a flow of value. Together, they offer an excellent strategy for modeling and delivering value. However, writing good use cases, like good user stories, is difficult. Steve Adolph presents pattern that can help use case writers and reviewers know what makes a good use case and judge their quality. Patterns such as Clear Cast of Characters and User Valued Transactions help evaluate the scope and size of a use case. Scenario Plus Fragments helps judge the structure of the use case, and Leveled Steps helps with the appropriate level of precision in use case descriptions. Use of the Adornments pattern avoids cluttering use case descriptions with non-functional issues. Finally Steve applies the Ever Unfolding Story to integrate use cases with user stories to detect any logical gaps.