My Role:  Chief Architect

Problem:  A large team of analysts and developers were designing a new system with numerous innovations for a $50 million project. The team was divided by functional area and personnel were assigned to areas reflecting their specialties. Each team was responsible for developing use cases for its assigned functional area. I was assigned to the functional area tackling the most complicated innovation in the project. As the design neared its end, it became clear that the teams were not giving proper weight to the integration of each functional area into the system as a whole.

Solution:  At first, my solution was simply to discuss the interfaces between the functional areas with the different teams. This proved ineffective. I decided to create a drawing (see below) showing each functional area and all the relationships. I analyzed the use cases for all the functional areas, synthesized them into a high-level design, and then created an appropriate visualization. The approach immediately exposed errors and deficiencies in the design, which were quickly corrected.

Outcome:  The design was correct prior to the commencement of development. All interfaces between functional areas had been defined and each development team knew exactly how its functional area interacted with every other area.

Document:  Use Case Global View. Click on the image below to view or right-click to download an Adobe PDF (85KB) of the drawing.

 

 

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