Integrating Lightweight Systems Analysis into the United Process by Using Service Responsibility Tables

This paper is a step toward establishing direct, but non-automatic links between lightweight (semi-formal) analysis methods for business professionals and heavyweight analysis methods for IT professionals. After noting the importance of user involvement in obtaining accurate and meaningful user requirements, the paper summarizes the Unified Process, a software development methodology that employs Unified Modeling Language (UML). Another section in the paper summarizes previous extensions of the work system method that produced a lightweight analysis tool called Service Responsibility Tables (SRTs). This paper uses a straightforward example to demonstrate a set of heuristics for translating between service responsibility tables produced by business professionals and UML diagrams that IT professionals can use as a partial basis for programming. This type of guideline-based link between lightweight and heavyweight methods could lead to more effective user involvement in requirements determination and reduce failure rate in IT projects.