Patterns for Effective Use Cases

Foreword

Since 1994, the Standish Group has published annual “Chaos” reports on project failure and success factors, analyzing tens of thousands of projects. In the failure column, over 30 percent of the pain factors were strongly related to requirements issues. And the 2000 National Software Quality Experiment (run by the U.S. Department of Defense) identified that the highest factor in defects, 41 percent, was related to lack of definition and traceability regarding requirements. In the “Chaos TEN” list of critical success factors identified by the Chaos studies, high user involvement and clear basic requirements are two of the key ingredients.

Clearly, doing a better job with requirements is needed. But—and this is a common trap—the classic ...