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Subject:RE: use cases - what are they good for From:"Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:29:05 -0000
Based on the discussion here seems to me that use cases are more about
nailing down the processes/procedures that need to be implemented in a
product design rather than about documenting what the product does once
built.
This brings me to an interesting question. How many of you are involved in
writing design documentation (e.g. product specifications) for the guidance
of product developers? I was for a long time involved in the writing of
international standards in telecoms, and use cases and other formal methods
are somewhat belatedly progressively being introduced there, as the
standards committees are discovering that digital protocols such as
3rd-generation mobile are getting too complex for them to maintain quality
without the assistance of formal methods.
Getting the 3G mobile specifications to a point where they were sufficiently
consistent and stable to build the networks has taken 2-3 years longer than
planned because of inadequate attention to quality and overall consistency
in the early days. The churn rate on the documentation was something
terrible as everyone scrambled to catch up. I tried to warn them of this
back in 2001, but nobody took any notice of me...
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