[Sigia-l] UML - still not fit for the UCD?

[Lord, Ralph]

I agree wholeheartedly with these statements by Ziya:

"Nobody else in the app development chain can or should consume UML/RUP,
except the dev team."

"Everyone (from the CEO to business analysts to marketing staff to
managers to users) can consume the prototype..."

We are fighting misunderstandings around these issues daily within my
company and with our client.  It's so bad that we had to put together a
"Unified Process 101" presentation for the group of managers and SME's
responsible for tailoring the RUP to the client's needs.  (I mean basic
stuff like "RUP is IBM/Rational's branded instantiation of the Unified
Process" and "The Rational tools are not the RUP")

Anyway, I also agree with these statements by Ash:

"[in XP]...projects gather requirements during development (this was
necessitated by poor requirements gathering techniques..."

"[UCD is] Big Up Front Design.  This approach encourages effective
requirements gathering and analysis,..."

Both Ziya's and Ash's (now there's a pair of names for you - "Ash and
Ziya:live at the Orpheum!") comments recognize the same problem - how to
communicate with and between users/stakeholders/managers/developers.
The BUFD approaches assume or believe that you really can find a way to
figure out what the thing ought to be before you build it, XP and most
agile methods throw in the towel on that whole effort.

Nevertheless, both types of approaches are struggling with a
communications issue and differ mostly in when they seek to solve it and
who is doing the solving. It looks to me like they both use the same
"technique", that is, putting something that looks like a "thing" in
front of everyone.  

The not so important difference is that BUFD does it with prototypes
before coding, Agile methods do it with successive iterations of the
application during coding.

The REALLY important difference is that the best BUFD approaches are
going to have some dedicated IA/ID/UX people working on it and the Agile
methods are going to have developers working on it.  
(In fact, at the recent ForUse2003 conference one of the XP proponents
was mentioning that Mr. Beck is concerned that XP has only two roles,
customer and developer. Rightly so.)

Enough of me. Who else is struggling with this communications issue?

Ralph Lord
System Analyst
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
770.234.6562