Writing Effective Use Cases (Agile Software Development Series)

Having tried 'Use Cases: Requirements in Context' and 'Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach' I can tell you this is the book to really understand what's the whole point of Use Cases. Whenever I am introduced to a modeling tool (UML would be another example for me) I always end up wondering what to put and what to leave out of the model I am building for the problem at hand. This book does not give you a specific answer (who would want a solution that would only apply to only a limited set of problems? I did not, at least for the project I used this book for), it gives you the very essence of the criteria you should apply to include something or not. By comparing this book to the other ones, this is superior because it does not provide a specific framework with esoteric descriptions about how Use Cases evolve throughout the project life cycle. It describes the purpose of writing use cases: describing a goal of some importance to an actor. So many times I have read these 'Use Cases' that describe a system in terms of people pushing buttons, changing values in some UI and end up describing the system in terms of CRUD operations not descriptive by any means. If, after all, most 'Enterprise Systems' built are just fancy and costly web-versions of SELECT, INSERT, DELETE and UPDATE statements executed against a database, how informative can be use cases that only say a system INSERTS/UPDATES/DELETES/QUERIES data in a database? By describing a user goal, all database operations (and many other interactions with any back-end systems) start making sense. I have found that we human beings are so good at 'filling out the blanks' that some of these operations might even sound obvious at times. This book will guide you during the writing of your use cases, keep them at consistent levels of abstraction and, more important, at all times highlight the ultimate goal your user wants to achieve by executing a use case. If you really want to complement the topics in this book, consider the perfect companion 'Patterns for Effective Use Cases'. Cheers! Ytsejammer

I had never heard of Use Cases until taking a class in Systems Analysis and Development. So I went to Amazon and did a search for books on Use Cases and saw that this one was rated quite high. I believe I read all the customer reviews. I don't understand how most everyone can give a 5 star rating and one person gives it a 1 star rating. I must say that this book could make even someone new like me, being new to Use Cases, look good. The Table of Contents makes it easy to find an overall view of Use Case topics and the Index breaks it down in great detail. The book is described by the author as a book that is, "predominately aimed at industry professionals who read and study alone, and is therefore organized as a self-study guide." I like that. If you are looking for a book for a class, such as the one I took, or just want to look good at work to describe a process, behavioral requirements, or software development, surely this book could help you too.

The first thing I noticed is that this book is almost 25 years old. That’s an eternity in computer science, especially in a non-mathematical subject. It was written under the “waterfall” paradigm of software development, before agile took over most of the software engineering world. Instead of a page or two, waterfall specifications could require a binder of dozens, if not hundreds, of pages. This book describes “use cases” instead of the “user stories” that agile commends. Why is this book worth someone’s time? In other words, why did I choose to read it? For two reasons. First, I’m a big fan of studying history. I’ll admit that I didn’t read every page closely in 2025, but I picked up on why agile design documents are organized a certain way. Knowing the history of the field allows me to understand the present better – and theoretically, be prepared for the future better. Second, most of the literature I’ve read on user stories is overly simplistic. They don’t go into enough detail about what to choose and how. When communicating with my developers, I want to understand what possibilities can and cannot be communicated. To see the global set of options, I had to go back in time to when large design documents were the norm. Just like when someone reads Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales to understand how modern literature took its form, I can see all the glorious option that writing a user story encompasses. Realistically, I don’t expect this book to be explored by a ton of people now. After all, it’s almost 25 years old! But thumbing through its pages enlightened me a bit as I start to communicate my ideas to the developers I work with. This was the greatest book on use cases in the waterfall era, written by the greatest expert on the subject, so I’m better primed to jump into agile practices and whatever era comes next.

Very helpful. Cockburn is a good teacher. Concepts are presented in multiple ways to give you multiple chances to get it. As tech books go, this one is pretty "squishy." Which is exactly right. The fact that it's 20 years old isn't a problem. Cockburn is teaching a method for creating coherence and completeness in designing a system. Sure, he's focused on computer systems, but I'm starting to think about how this methodology applies to a business plan. The most important idea in the book, for me, is about "levels." How to know when you're getting too airy-fairy and when you're getting bogged down in the details and when you're getting it just right. I had a project where the problem was I was all over the place on levels, and this straightened me right out.

excellent book

Great reference in relation to requirements management and how use cases can be used as a central hub connecting all aspects of requirement management.

This is a top-notch book on Use Cases. I got it because I had to write Use Cases for a programming and configuration tool for a safety controller used with electric motor drives in industrial automation systems. This is a SIL3 safety-critical application. I disagree entirely with the two-star-awarding reviewer who calls Cockburn "naive". Indeed the great virtue of Cockburn's approach to Use Cases is that he keeps them simple. This is a major advantage in high-integrity systems where simplicity is the friend of reliability and safety. I also applaud Cockburn's evident disdain for using UML graphical notations for UCs. OO-methods are generally shunned in safety-critical systems as they are regarded as too imprecise (Indeed hardened practitioners in critical systems engineering often regard the use of UML/OO as a sign of limited competence.) Cockburn is IMO absolutely right in saying that UCs are an essentially textual form. Sooner or later the developers of MIS-type systems will realise that those of us who have been doing hard software engineering (in this reviewer's case for over 40 years) actually have a far clearer idea of the kinds of specification formalisms that work when things absolutely have to be right. And when the OO fad has finally died, I reckon Cockburn's book will still be in print because it does not shackle itself to the UML/OO bandwagon. IMO, this book is exceptionally well-written and down-to-earth. It is, I think, a solid and welcome contribution to the literature on specification.

The book provides a very effective methodology to collect and describe functional requirements. The presentation is very clear and reach of examples from real projects. It is possible to learn use cases since reading the first sections. The rest of the book is dedicated to in-depth analysis of some topics.

Livre très riche en enseignements et plein de bon conseils. Je conseille chaque architecte informatique à l'avoir et mettre en pratique les "recettes" de ce livre.