January, 2004
Thank You Susan Burk

"10 Great Things to Do with Analysis Models and Artifacts"
                                                                  Download her Powerpoint Slides!
January 13, 2004
Susan Burk, MassMutual

Analysis is the part of the software development process which everyone loves to shrink or skip. Typical reasons for minimizing or eliminating analysis activities are "Project deadlines are tight, we don't have time to use these techniques",  "People know what they want by seeing user prototypes rather than by examining models" "Most people can't read models",  "You can't build the analysis model"

While all of these concerns are valid, "just enough" analysis activities can have a very positive effect on software projects.

Susan's well received presentation identified 10 great (and relatively quick) things which can be done with analysis techniques which result in better project thinking.

#10 Find Use Cases with Process Models and Activity Diagrams.
#9 Produce good "ballpark estimates".
#8 Define terms.
#7 Get "extra value" from Use Cases.
#6 Use Analysis Sequence diagrams to determine where to place behavior.
#5 Evaluate the placement of data and behavior for whole scope using class diagrams.
#4 Find data for Rules
#3 Use the class model to determine the data model or to map to an existing data model.
#2 Find gaps with traceability matrices.
#1 Make good decisions earlier and more cheaply.
A COOUG director since 1999, Susan has been a speaker at several COOUG meetings and SIGS, including "Mapping UML Models to Relational Persistence" in 2001 and her 1998 talk on "Choosing UML Features When Tailoring a Methodology".  She heads the COOUG program committee and has been creative in establishing "topic themes".  Her industry reputation, including DAMA and the Rational Users Group, have brought in many well known speakers. At MassMutual Financial Group she is responsible for promoting analysis and design best practices. She has over twenty years industry experience, most of them working with application development teams and Information Resource Management (IRM) and Object Technology Center (OTC) infrastructure groups in the insurance, telecommunication, manufacturing, shipping, and finance industries. Previously, as a principal with American Management Systems, she provided mentoring, training, and facilitation support in Object-Oriented (OO) Analysis and Design, Information Engineering and Information Resource Management (IRM) at 21 major (Fortune 100 - Fortune 1000) institutions in the US and around the world.

We gave away these six book door prizes courtesy Addison Wesley and Prentice-Hall/PTR.  "Death March", "Software by Numbers", "Software Development for Small Teams", "The Rational Unified Process", "Practical Software Engineering: Analysis and Design for the .NET Platform", and "Enterprise Patterns and MDA"
 Reported by Terry McAuliffe