UseCase.org | UML modeling in an Agile environment

How have you used UML modeling tools--or just hand drawn UML diagrams--in an Agile environment?

Transcript

1. Question of the week How have you used UML modeling tools--or just hand drawn UML diagrams--in an Agile environment? Submitted by: Product Manager at Fidelity Investments Perspectives from Ravi Patel Josh Wexler THE PRODUCT COMMUNITY Vivek Bedi
2. Read more best practices on Usecase.org Josh is an expert on early stage software innovation. As a Solutions Director at Originate, he develops new business and helps potential partners shape their ideas into projects. He has advised global consulting firms, financial services companies, and early-stage entrepreneurs throughout every stage of the software development process, ranging from ideation and validation to fundraising rounds and commercial launches. JOSH WEXLER Josh’s Perspective There was this big movement in the 1980-90s to codify everything in tech and development. UML came out of that - ‘universal modeling language’ sounds aspirational, but it’s not actually useful. Ultimately, people don’t learn an entire system to get something done. It’s very tedious and time-consuming, so the cost-benefit doesn’t fit modern product development. People learn when they need something, not in preparation for every potential use case in the future. I feel like UML is the antithesis of agile, as it’s almost process for process’s sake. The reason I believe agile has become so powerful is because it’s a simple manifesto and immediately applicable. It grabs you right away. UML is the opposite.
3. Passionate leader with extensive experience leading global adoption and expansion across the areas of technology, product management, sales, marketing, and operations. Drove transformational and organizational evolution with keen focus on clients, innovation, operational efficiency, and fostering an engaging team culture. Message Vivek on LinkedIn for further questions VIVEK BEDI Vivek’s Perspective My preference and what I generally encourage my team to do is hand drawn UML diagrams. I think the tools out there off the shelf or freeware are okay but especially when it comes to most efficient collaboration across various teams in an Agile framework hand/whiteboard style are the best that can be shared across globally teams. For us, UML diagrams help in step by step analysis of where to pin-point decisions in the development lifecycle. A few examples we recently conducted were two projects. One around operational efficiency and documenting step by step how agents user various tools, clicks, documents, MS products through their entire workflow to complete the fulfillment of an order. After many tweaks of that workflow we realized where we can gain efficiencies via automation and where time can be reduced by consolidating toolsets. In this exercise we conducted quite a bit of shadow sessions before we developed any UML/workflow diagrams. After the shadow sessions and some reflection, we developed UML diagrams with tech, product, and operations together on whiteboards. Which were then transferred to MS Visio for storage. These set of documents were then analyzed to reconstruct the future more efficient workflow. The second project where we used UML workflows recently was in the user experience front. We used tools such as usertesting.com and applicant interviews to watch click by click how they enter data into our application. Then we created storyboards and UML diagrams to come up with a more efficient user experience as applicants navigate the application process. These were then transferred to MS Visio but the key here was many whiteboard sessions to optimize the experience. Eventually the new UML lead to a mockup in tools such as Balsamiq to create a new experience. We then brought the new experience to our clients and adjusted and releases. Read more best practices on Usecase.org
4. Ravi is the CTO of AirFind a mobile Ad Tech company based out of California. He leads the vision and technology strategy for technology platforms, partnerships, and external relationships within the company. RAVI PATEL Ravi’s Perspective So in general the go-to tool I’ve used for UML modeling in the past is Microsoft Visio. These days the extent of modeling we use is limited to sequence diagrams, which I do on a free web- based tool called websequencediagrams.com. There are also other tools out there though that can be used for things like class diagrams and schema designs which can actually be used to generate code. The old school one from back in the day was IBM’s RationalRose but I haven’t looked at that in 10 years. These days most languages have MVC frameworks that support “schemas” that let you model your objects and dataschemas right in the code along with all the relationships and dependencies. To a certain extent this obsoletes some of the needs for these types of UML designs. Read more best practices on Usecase.org
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