FollowUp on F2F

["Sally St. Amand" <sallystamand@yahoo.com>]

John

My efforts to listen in on the F2F were not particularly productive. So I would appreciate it if you could begin our next use case call with a summary of the use case presentation (and the verbiage supporting your slides) and the reaction to the presentation.

I would also like to revisit the one page template I put together. While I am in full agreement with the concept of the catalogue to provide the context and explanation of use cases, and to provide a compendium of actual use cases. Use case commonly accepted as a business process to achieve a goal.

The Supply chain is not a use case. Multiple use cases make up a supply chain. Because the concept of a supply chain has been implemented many times there are many examples of business processes that have been documented. Soliciting examples of use cases has the advantage of not having to repeat work/effort and not appearing to create use cases to prove an aspect of the spec. For example, Ram's need for a use case to demonstrate Issue 43. (I did hear parts of the discussion.)

In my view simpl-eb is not a use case in that it is not delineating a business activity. It is a business process whose intent is to facilitate a business activity (i.e. trade). Since BPEL's objective is to provide interoperability among business activities, the business perspective has to be the driver. Simple-eb is a standards approach to facilitate trade.

The one page template proposed was intended to capture use cases from the business perspective.

The Description Section of the template is intended to present the use case in sufficient detail to convey understanding. The items listed are what may be needed to capture a good description, not a checklist. Use cases from business personnel could be discouraged or misunderstood with the inclusion of specific technical requirements.

It will probably be necessary for someone, most likely from the subgroup, to work with use case submitters to develop/define the technical issues. The emphasis has to be on a real business process that is a real world economic activity.

Sally