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7 Steps To Writing Business Use Cases

The document outlines 7 steps for writing business use cases: 1) Identify actors and their goals 2) Define the pre-conditions needed for the use case 3) Describe the main flow of events from trigger to outcome 4) Identify post-conditions resulting from a successful use case 5) Describe any exceptions where things may go wrong 6) Note any alternate flows that could affect the use case 7) The full process helps document system functionality from a business perspective.

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48K views1 page

7 Steps To Writing Business Use Cases

The document outlines 7 steps for writing business use cases: 1) Identify actors and their goals 2) Define the pre-conditions needed for the use case 3) Describe the main flow of events from trigger to outcome 4) Identify post-conditions resulting from a successful use case 5) Describe any exceptions where things may go wrong 6) Note any alternate flows that could affect the use case 7) The full process helps document system functionality from a business perspective.

Uploaded by

iagconsulting
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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7 Steps to Writing Business Use Cases

For Each Use Case:


1) Identify the Actors 5) Describe the Main Flow

Actor: Someone or something that interacts with, or Main Flow:


uses, the system to achieve a desired goal Also known as Primary Scenario
An actor may be: A single thread of events
A user of the system. Describe the user by The simplest sequence – everything goes
their role right
An individual who is not an user (customer, Ideally, no branching – make a note of
client, etc) relevant variations
The System under Discussion (SuD). Starts with pre-conditions and ends with
Describe it as “the system” post conditions
Another system (external entity) Describe the Main Flow by asking:
“What must happen to achieve the goal /
2) Identify the Goal outcome?”
“What does the actor need to do next?”
Goal: The aim, or purpose – Goals summarize “What might happen next?”
system functionality in terms of use from a business “What do you need to do to get from the
perspective trigger to the outcome?”
Identify the Goal:
From the high-level scenario
By brainstorming 6) Describe the Exceptions
By asking “What does this Actor want to do?” Exceptions:
Created to describe the failure situations
3) Define the Pre-Conditions Things that may go wrong in the Use Case
Discover exceptions by asking:
Pre-Condition: Something that must happen before
“What could go wrong?”
the Use Case can start; something that must be in
place before the Use Case can start
Identify Pre-Conditions by asking: 7) Describe the Alternate Flows
“What must be in place for the Use Case to
Alternate Flows:
begin?”
Created to describe the variations to the
“How do you know you need to do this?”
Main Flow
Results in successful outcome
4) Define the Post-Conditions
Also referred to as scenarios
Post-Conditions: The result, or successful outcome of Listen for “sometimes”, “maybe”, and “it
the Use Case depends”
Identify the Post-Conditions by asking: Discover alternate flows by asking:
“What is the successful result of this process “What might affect this Use Case?”
or Use Case?”

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