Application of Rational tools to simplify analysis and tool development based on J2EE project (IV)

Part 1: Analysis and tool progress
Steven Franklin
Software designers and process experts
April 2004
In the next phase of this sample project that demonstrates the use of RUP and other Rational tools, use cases are refined by adding documents and traceability to requirements, the tools and technologies used are evaluated and selected.
This article focuses on the refinement phase of the ASDI project, especially in case analysis (refining our use cases to add trackability to the working state (SOW, and standardize and generate use case documents) and select appropriate tools and technologies.
Part 1 snapshots
The tools and technologies demonstrated in part 1 are as follows:
Rational Rose Enterprise Edition-used for case refinement
Rational SoDA-a low-cost tool for generating case documents for customer checks
Rational RequisitePro-used to manage traceability between SOW requirements and use cases
Products generated or updated:
Rational Rose model-modified and added more detailed content in all aspects of the use case
Use Case Report-use Rational SoDA to generate from Rose use cases
RequisitePro database-updated to include traceability between SOW requirements and use cases
Detailed and documented use cases
Figure 1 shows the evolution of use cases in stage 1 of the ASDI project (the initial and refined phases of RUP. As we discussed in Part 1, we created business use cases in the initial phase, and then converted the business use cases into the "current" system use cases at the initial stage of refinement. Now we are at the most intense moment in the refinement phase, and we are preparing to refine our use cases to convert the system to detailed requirements. This evolution is naturally formed, because we can add more detailed information for the use case until we determine whether the use case we are defining is correct. Once detailed system requirements are met, we have passed the ASDI review as a formal deliverable.
Figure 1: Evolution of stage 1 use cases
Standardized case document
We commented on the use cases in our informal inspection meeting with ASDI. Use case charts and packages are also regularly checked by our senior team members. A "sound" check will bring the following results:
Report unstable or missing aspects to the team lead
Useful analysis recommendations, modes, and functional breakdown considerations
Consistent System View
Communication between the engineering team on detailed requirements
Our focus now is to record what we have learned. We have reached an agreement with ASDI in the form of the case document, and we are very pleased that they are willing to accept the method of adding documents directly to each case in the Rose model. This makes things easier for us, because it means lower expectations for beautiful documents.
When multiple team members work together, we find that we need to standardize the documents associated with each use case. Therefore, we draft a document template for the use case and apply it to each use case of the Rose model. The content shown in Figure 2 is pasted into the document window of each use case as a template. Note that the term "variation" is used in this template as a stenographer for the optional flow concepts of the RUP.