Use cases have never been this easy to understand -- or this easy to create! In Writing Effective Use Cases, Alistair Cockburn offers a hands-on, soup-to-nuts guide to use case development, based on the proven concepts he has refined through years of research, development, and seminar presentations.KEY TOPICS:Cockburn begins by answering the most basic questions facing anyone interested in use cases: "What does a use case look like? When do I write one?" Next, he introduces each key element of use cases: actors, stakeholders, design scope, goal levels, scenarios, and more. Writing Effective Use Cases contains detailed guidelines, formats, and project standards for creating use cases -- as well as a detailed chapter on style, containing specific do's and don'ts. Cockburn shows how use cases fit together with requirements gathering, business processing reengineering, and other key issues facing software professionals. The book includes practice exercises with solutions, as well as a detailed appendix on how to use these techniques with UML.MARKET:For all application developers, object technology practitioners, software system designers, architects, and analysts.

"Agile Software Development is a highly stimulating and rich book. The author has a deep background and gives us a tour de force of the emerging agile methods." -Tom Gilb The agile model of software development has taken the world by storm. Now, in "Agile Software Development, Second Edition," one of agile's leading pioneers updates his Jolt Productivity award-winning book to reflect all that's been learned about agile development since its original introduction. Alistair Cockburn begins by updating his powerful model of software development as a "cooperative game of invention and communication." Among the new ideas he introduces: harnessing competition without damaging collaboration; learning lessons from lean manufacturing; and balancing strategies for communication. Cockburn also explains how the cooperative game is played in business and on engineering projects, not just software development Next, he systematically illuminates the agile model, shows how it has evolved, and answers the questions developers and project managers ask most often, including - Where does agile development fit in our organization? - How do we blend agile ideas with other ideas? - How do we extend agile ideas more broadly? Cockburn takes on crucial misconceptions that cause agile projects to fail. For example, you'll learn why encoding project management strategies into fixed processes can lead to ineffective strategy decisions and costly mistakes. You'll also find a thoughtful discussion of the controversial relationship between agile methods and user experience design. Cockburn turns to the practical challenges of constructing agile methodologies for your own teams. You'll learn how to tune andcontinuously reinvent your methodologies, and how to manage incomplete communication. This edition contains important new contributions on these and other topics: - Agile and CMMI - Introducing agile from the top down - Revisiting "custom contracts" - Creating change with "stickers" In addition, Cockburn updates his discussion of the Crystal methodologies, which utilize his "cooperative game" as their central metaphor. If you're new to agile development, this book will help you succeed the first time out. If you've used agile methods before, Cockburn's techniques will make you even more effective.