Practical UML for Business Analysts
Govind Krishna Mekala
Challenges
Gap between BAs and tech teams due to
lack for common view towards a problem. Too much documentation in text form, which is difficult to understand. A picture is worth more than thousand words. Lack of standards to document requirements which appeals to both customer and development teams.
Why UML?
A standard and integral part of RUP. Standard notations and common
language. Very less or no legend required as a supplement to the diagrams. Facilitates discussion around the UML diagrams. A pictorial view of domain and requirement analysis. Language and technology independent.
UML for BAs?
Common misunderstanding:
UML is only for techies? UML is difficult to learn? UML tools are expensive? UML diagrams are difficult to understand! UML is time consuming.
Agenda
We are going to cover the following topics in UML:
1. 2. 3.
Specification perspective. Use Case Diagram Activity Diagram
Hands On:
1. Tool: Visio 2003. 2. Exercise
UML perspectives
Three different perspectives of UML:
1. Conceptual Concepts in the domain under study, Language Independent. 2. Specification Defines overall interfaces of the software. 3. Implementation Defines details of implementations in terms of classes, components, sequence and state.
Use Case
Use Case: Set of scenarios tied together by a common user goal. Example: A corporate web portal, that will serve
employees, customer, and partners. The task at hand is use registration for each type of user. Employees are assumed to be able to register themselves. Customer can, too. Partners can register themselves and get basic access, but need to be checked against a partner list before they can be granted full access. If the partner isnt on the list, a manager needs to authorize
Use case Diagram
Basic notations:
U seC ase 1 A c to r 1
e x te n d s
uses
in h e r its
Use Cases Diagram
Define partners Create account
Approve account
<<actor>> Web site
Manager Request account
User
Generalized use cases
Request account
inherits
inherits
inherits
Request employee account
Request customer account
Request partner account
Extend Use Case
Employee authorization extends
Authorize user
extends
Partner authorization
Activity Diagram
Activity diagram is used to describe a use
case in detail. They support parallel operations. Notation
ActionState1
Partner
Web site
Manager
Request partner account
Create generic account
Forward request to manager
evaluate request
Enable partner access
[enable=yes]
[enable=no]
Login
e-mail user login information
Tools
Visio 2003 / Visio 2000 with UML stencils
Cumbersome to align and glue diagrams.
TogetherJ
Takes care of grouping and alignment.
UMLet: free UML tool. Requires JDK1.4
http://qse.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~auer/umlet/