7 Steps to Writing Business Use Cases

For Each Use Case:

1) Identify the Actors 5) Describe the Main Flow

Actor: Someone or something that interacts with, or Main Flow:

uses, the system to achieve a desired goal Also known as Primary Scenario
An actor may be: A single thread of events
A user of the system. Describe the user by The simplest sequence – everything goes
their role right
An individual who is not an user (customer, Ideally, no branching – make a note of
client, etc) relevant variations
The System under Discussion (SuD). Starts with pre-conditions and ends with
Describe it as “the system” post conditions
Another system (external entity) Describe the Main Flow by asking:
“What must happen to achieve the goal /
2) Identify the Goal outcome?”
“What does the actor need to do next?”
Goal: The aim, or purpose – Goals summarize “What might happen next?”
system functionality in terms of use from a business “What do you need to do to get from the
perspective trigger to the outcome?”
Identify the Goal:
From the high-level scenario
By brainstorming 6) Describe the Exceptions
By asking “What does this Actor want to do?” Exceptions:
Created to describe the failure situations
3) Define the Pre-Conditions Things that may go wrong in the Use Case
Discover exceptions by asking:
Pre-Condition: Something that must happen before
“What could go wrong?”
the Use Case can start; something that must be in
place before the Use Case can start
Identify Pre-Conditions by asking: 7) Describe the Alternate Flows
“What must be in place for the Use Case to
Alternate Flows:
begin?”
Created to describe the variations to the
“How do you know you need to do this?”
Main Flow
Results in successful outcome
4) Define the Post-Conditions
Also referred to as scenarios
Post-Conditions: The result, or successful outcome of Listen for “sometimes”, “maybe”, and “it
the Use Case depends”
Identify the Post-Conditions by asking: Discover alternate flows by asking:
“What is the successful result of this process “What might affect this Use Case?”
or Use Case?”

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