Storytelling
What
Storytelling - a continuous use case description in a non-technical language
How
The dish
Storytelling
Ingredients
- A Rich Picture
- General requirements for the system
Process
Write a short novel concerning the application of the system. Pretend that you spend a period of time, for example a day, with a user of the new system and write down how you observe the period. You decide how detailed the description should be, however, the purpose of the story is to understand the system better and achieve a general overview.
If there are many different users, you may write two or more stories, so you can cover every angle of the system.
Why
In the initial phases of a project it is often difficult to keep a general overview, because many impressions and details have been printed into the developer's head. One way of achieving this general overview is 'storytelling'. It is very liberating to write a story instead of technical requirements, because a story can be told with more or less technical information and you can use your imaginative and creative skills. Another argument for using storytelling is that you can reread your story and preferably get inspiration for further development of the system-to-be.
You do not have to worry as to how to implement the functions you are describing, just write and then later on in the analysis and design phases, you can focus on the functions and how to implement them.
Example
It is early in the morning and the alarm clock sounds especially terrible this morning. Michael knows that it is Monday, and it will be 5 whole days before he will be able to sleep all morning again without the sound of the alarm clock wakening him up.
It is winter and the temperature has climbed below 0 C, but nevertheless it is warm and cosy in his bedroom. He thanks himself for having installed the automatic heating system, and he thanks the system for having started one hour ago heating up the entire house. It makes it a little bit easier to get up this cold and early winter morning.
After finishing his breakfast, he puts on his winter coat and heads for his car to drive a short way to work. On his way out of the front door, he pushes at small button which registers that no one is home right know. Immediately, the system shuts down the oil pump, so that the temperature in the house will drop 3 degrees, a temperature calculated to be the most energy saving. Knowing that he will be home again within 10 hours, he takes a look on the display to see how much energy the solar cells produce at the moment and is not surprised to see that this early winter morning is not the most energy producing this year.
On his way to work he suddenly realises that Monday is the day of the week when the cleaning lady comes to his house to clean up the mess he has made during the weekend. She is a very nice lady and does her job very well; she never complains, not even when he sometimes throws his socks the strangest places. It would be a shame if she should start her working day in a cold unheated house. He grabs his cell phone, and uses its WAP browser to connect to the system at home in his house, logs in with user name and password, and with just a few clicks he activates the system to restart the heating right away, and then shut it down again after 2 hours. Knowing his conscience is clean now, he will be able to concentrate on his work.
It is a very boring day at work, all his clients are on vacation skiing in Norway, so there is not much to do. After having sat on his flat behind doing absolutely nothing for hours, he decides to go home early. Last week on the job had been hell with long working hours, so it is only fair that he goes home early. Before leaving the office, he uses his computer to log onto his house heating system. With a few clicks on the mouse and keyboard, the heating starts boosting the radiators with hot water. This will raise the temperature to its normal level within 15 minutes or so and make his entrance a little more comfortable. It is not something he does often, because the whole system is automated. Normally, it is set to raise the temperature slowly 1 hour or so before he comes home from work.
After going through some work at home in the evening and finishing episode II of Lord Of The Rings, which he started to watch the previous night, he suddenly feels very tired and decides to go to bed. It does not take long before he sleeps like a warm and comfortable baby. He does not even hear the silent "wzzz" when the heating slowly turns down making the temperature drop to the system's night level. The weather forecast for the next day predicts degrees below 0 C.
