Business Analysis: Working with Use Cases

Use cases describe how users interact with systems, focusing on process driven, goal centric, and user focused flows, with examples from Amazon, ERP, and CRM.

Identify the four core use case components: unique id, title, description, and actors, and note that business rules and UI wireframes are optional templates to consider.

Master the basic flow, the heart of a use case, simple sequence of steps with step id, actor, action, notes, for creating a new user through alternate and exception flows.

Explore alternate flows in use cases, showing how to handle invalid input and unavailable usernames with concise, reader-friendly steps that extend the basic flow.

Explore exception flows, how they differ from alternate flows, and how to handle system errors gracefully by guiding users to support channels and documenting error messages.

Explore preconditions, postconditions, and triggers in use case modeling, illustrated by a create user scenario where a CSR starts the process, and the user account is created.

Model use cases with flowcharts by visualizing basic and alternate flows and exceptions, using regular and swim lane charts to clarify roles, stakeholders, and requirements.

Learn how to build use case diagrams in UML, including system boundary, use cases, actors, and relationships, with a trade processing example showing client, trader, and market interactions.

Explore includes and extends as the two core use case relationships, showing how a use case includes another and how extends adds optional functionality via alternate flows.

Explore two approaches to documenting use cases, either as the project’s centerpiece or as a supplement to requirements, and learn to structure the use case diagram and prioritize use cases.

Clarify how use cases and user stories differ in agile, and show how to split epics into user stories, use cases to scope, diagram the big picture, and identify stakeholders.

Explore misuse cases, a security-focused extension of use cases that model undesired interactions, defacement, data theft, and resource theft, and learn how to collaborate with security experts to harden systems.

See how use cases drive an online trading website project, guiding requirements, and tasks like entering orders, viewing historical trades, stock lists, quotes, order status, and account activity.

Brenda learns to build use cases with guidance from an expert and a junior trader, and she sets up a three-person meeting to walk through the process.

Interview experts to refine use cases for an online trading website, confirming core flows (entering and canceling orders, viewing trades) and noting supplemental requirements for usability, training, and tab navigation.

Develop a use case for order entry, detailing actors, preconditions, postconditions, the basic flow from login to order submission, and market execution and execution report handling.

Explore the use case for order entry and potential execution failures, as Brenda and Daniel identify key failure scenarios and capture the most important requirements from the trading system.

Explore how to model online trading with use cases, actors, and a use case diagram, then walk through basic, alternate, and exception flows for entering an order and validating trades.

Scenario analysis and use case-driven scoping guide practice through Brenda's collaboration with an experienced mentor. Drive meetings with agendas, questions, and listening to elicit what else and clarify understanding.

Apply use cases from a business analyst perspective, recognize their usefulness across many projects, and stay connected through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and our blog.