Business Analysis / Requirements / Requirements Models / Software development / Testing / Use Cases

The Difference Between Use Cases and Test Cases

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People who are new to software, requirements, or testing often ask “What’s the difference between a use case and a test case?” This article answers that question, by building on earlier articles about use cases and use case scenarios. At the soundbite level, each use case has one or more scenarios, and each use case scenario would lead to the creation of one or more test cases.

Requirements / Requirements Models / Use Cases

What Are Use Case Scenarios?

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It is easy to mix up the definitions of use case and use case scenario. A use case represents the actions that are required to enable or abandon a goal. A use case has multiple “paths” that can be taken by any user at any one time. A use case scenario is a single path through the use case. This article provides an example use case and some diagrams to help visualize the concept.

Agile / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / Software development / Use Cases

Agile Development of Use Cases

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We proposed a strategy for developing use cases as part of an agile development methodology last week. In this article, we will look in more detail at that proposal, and also look at a specific way to apply agile techniques to the development of the use cases. What we propose is essentially incremental development of use cases, and starting what comes next as soon as you can.

Agile / Business Analysis / Prioritization / Product Management / Project Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / Software development / Use Cases

How To Start The Use Case Process For Agile Software Development

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One of the goals of agile software development is to deliver value quickly and iteratively. One of the most effective ways to begin the software development process is with use cases. To deliver with agility, you start with the most valuable use case, bang it out, and then move on to the next most valuable use case. How do you know which use case is the most valuable if you haven’t defined all the use cases first?

Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / UML Modeling / Use Cases

Use Case vs. UML Statechart – Business Rules

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What is the better requirements management model for capturing business rules? The use case, or the UML statechart? In this article, we explore how customer orders are submitted and processed, and contrast how use cases and statecharts expose and document business requirements and business rules.

Business Analysis / Business Process Modeling / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / Use Cases

Use Case vs. Process Flow – Failure Handling

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Should you use use cases or process flow diagrams to document business requirements? At some level, they both document the same thing, they just document it differently. The best requirements will come from doing both – but what if you are forced to choose one? What are the tradeoffs between use cases and process flows? In this article we look at the documentation of failure handling.