Scenarios, Stories, Use Cases: Through the Systems Development Life-Cycle

CHAPTER 15

PROJECT STORIES: COMBINING LIFE-CYCLE PROCESS MODELS

Andrew Farncombe

John Boardman Associates Limited, Southampton, UK

THIS CHAPTER applies scenario thinking to the system development process itself. Projects succeed when their requirements are right and development is effectively managed to control risk. Both of these aspects often lead to iterative development life cycles (e.g. requirements are often gathered iteratively in a series of scenario workshops). The simplest life-cycle story is the single-pass ‘waterfall’; in this chapter, the shortcomings of that story are examined, and an approach is developed that shows how to combine three kinds of life cycle to suit a wide range of project situations.

APPLICABILITY

The ‘systems of interest’ dealt with in this chapter should be not be thought of as implying any particular implementation technology. Systems comprising mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and other solutions are all within the scope of the discussion. This requires a more general approach than, say, software development methods designed to be used within familiar implementation domains, possibly employing regularly occurring requirements and design ‘patterns’.

Scenario use is almost by definition participative, and several authors in this volume explicitly involve stakeholders: for example, Suzanne Robertson in Chapter 3, Ellen Gottesdiener in Chapter 5, Karen Holtzblatt in Chapter 10. Stakeholder participation implies a willingness to listen ...