Effective Requirements with Use Cases (CSTP #5) or (CTM Elective) or (CSTAS Elective)

This tutorial covers area 5 of the Certified Software Test Professional requirements. This tutorial also counts as an elective towards the requirements of the Certified Test Manager (CTM) certification.

For cost and cities where this course might be offered, check our Public Training Schedule.To bring this course to your test team at your location, contact our Education and Professionals Services Group.

Concepts

Facts that every requirement analyst, developer, and project manager knows :

  • No requirement is complete
  • No requirement is precise
  • No requirement is even testable

Analyzing requirements written in narrative text might uncover some problems, but most requirements remain ambiguous, incomplete, and missing details; even after development starts. The end result is always a release that does not meet customer needs.

Use cases have been proven to be a very powerful technique for deriving details about requirements. Specifically, Use Cases help derive details on interactions between the system and all types of users and systems interacting with it. These details are important for both the development and test team to deliver high quality systems. Although many projects have used some form of Use Cases, very few projects have actually reaped the full benefits of this powerful technique. In this course, attendees will learn how to effectively develop, analyze, and validate Use Cases.

The course uses a mix of a lecture and workshop format

Participants will learn:
  • The different types of requirements
  • How to evaluate requirements for correctness, completeness, consistency, precision, and testability.
  • How to use models to define requirements more precisely
  • How to effectively participate in a Use Case development and analysis sessions
  • How to master the process of using Use Cases to find system requirements that would otherwise be missed
  • How to identify scenarios that must be handled by the system and tested by the test team
Outline
  • The Requirement Management Process
    • Types of requirements
    • Documenting requirements
    • Characteristic of good requirements
    • The use of natural languages for defining requirement
  • Model-Based requirement process
    • Model-Based development and testing
    • The use of models in support of Test-Driven development
    • Models as blueprints that guide development and testing
  • Use Cases as a requirement model
    • Why do we need use cases
    • Where do Use Cases fit in the requirement process
    • Who should participate in use case development
    • Use Cases defined
    • Team exercise
  • Use Case Components
    • Goal, actors, and scenarios
    • Pre-conditions, Triggers, and Post-conditions
    • Failure and success scenarios
    • Team exercise
  • Using Use Cases to find missing requirements (more scenarios)
    • More scenarios based on pre-condition
    • More scenarios based on actions
    • Team exercise
  • Conclusion