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Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases?

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On 08/07/2012 08:26 PM, David Lamb wrote:
> Does anyone have data, or at least an informed opinion, on how often
> genuine users of a proposed piece of software get consulted on
> developing use cases (or some close equivalent)? I ask here because of
> the recent UML discussion and because I've seen people, especially Lew,
> mention use cases reasonably frequently.
>
> In an informal discussion with a colleague I was arguing based on things
> I'd read that "modern best practices" recommended interviewing the
> people who will actually use a software system in their jobs, rather
> than only upper management or professional consultants. He said the
> industry standard was to resell an old system to new customers and
> charge for every small attempt to get it to work the way the customers
> wanted.
>
> Is he being excessively cynical, or am I being excessively naive? Does
> anyone know which of us is closer to right? Is the answer different for
> the Java and object-oriented-development community than it is for other
> developers?

I actually believe you could both be right: it is in fact modern 
practice to do so - but the practice might not be applied widely.  Often 
the people who decide about a software purchase and those who use it are 
not identical.

It may be worse with web applications: there users are often not in the 
same organization as the one who actually puts the money on the table. 
Users might be asked when the product is operational already - or never.

In telco industries there are exist a lot of specifications.  There is 
is common practice to compare the sub set of the standard a customer 
needs with the published compatibility documents of a vendor.  Often 
other aspects are given less weight, for example usability.  But 
customers actually describe use cases they want to have implemented. 
Although these are often more formal than the term suggests (i.e. 
contain specific protocol definitions).

Kind regards

	robert

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Thread

Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? David Lamb <dalamb@cs.queensu.ca> - 2012-08-07 14:26 -0400
  Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-08-07 22:13 +0200
  Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-08-07 13:47 -0700
    Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-08-07 14:23 -0700
      Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-08-07 14:54 -0700
      Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? David Lamb <dalamb@cs.queensu.ca> - 2012-08-08 09:47 -0400
        Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-08-08 09:48 -0700
        Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-08-12 22:57 -0400
    Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? David Lamb <dalamb@cs.queensu.ca> - 2012-08-08 09:44 -0400
    Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-08-12 22:53 -0400
  Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> - 2012-08-08 11:41 +0300
  Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-08-12 22:48 -0400
    Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-08-13 05:32 -0500
      Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-08-14 12:35 -0700
      Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-08-14 15:35 -0500
        Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-08-15 09:32 -0700

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