What This Book Is Not

As with the scope of software projects, it's probably as important to be clear about what this book is not as it is what it is. I've touched on a couple things already, but they are worth reiterating.

The book does not provide an introduction on use cases: what they are, their benefit, or how to write them.

Nor will this book provide an overview of UML or the Unified Software Development Process. In general, this book is largely software development life-cycle neutral. Some of the ideas presented in the book actually work just as well with Extreme Programming's (XP) Stories as they do with use cases, and these will be pointed out.

While you will be getting a good impression of what the other disciplines are aboutQFD, Software Reliability Engineering, Model-Based Specification, CM/Project Portfolio Managementthe intent is not to present a definitive tutorial on any of these topics. Having said that, what you do get in this book from a use case-driven development standpoint may be all you ever need.

Richard Denney
Austin, Texas
www.software-quality-consulting.com