I just read a very good blog by Alistair Cockburn that summarizes the challenges in agile development when substituting user stories for use cases as the primary functional requirements deliverable. I love it when he says a user story is similar to a use case like a gazelle is to a gazebo. Pretty funny. I highly recommend this one if you are a business analyst, PM, architect, or developer. http://alistair.cockburn.us/Why+I+still+use+use+cases?goback=%2Ehom
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Have to say I have never understood why user stories are seen as a substitute for use cases. They have completely different purposes within a sigle project. While use cases clarify a project’s requirements/scope, user stories help to organise an prioritize workload for each sprint. Both have there place!!! I whole heartedly agree with the point Mr C makes when he points out that one of the “sticky parts” with use cases is “It is really easy to think all the use cases have to be written up front, when in fact the writing should be staged over the life of the project”. Too often I find BAs still have a waterfall mentallity thinking that requirements gathering should be complete before design can start. While it is true that you can not design something if you don’t know what it is required to do, you can not build it before it has been designed and you can not test it before it has been built. We need to remeber that high level design can be done from high level requirements and detailed requirement can be elaborated iteratively.
Great article!!!