One of the challenges I encounter with producing customer requirements for consumption by a development team is overcoming the barrier of understanding. My company does not have dedicated business analysts, so the role of translating customer needs to development needs and architecture is typically handled by our developers. What if they don’t see the big picture of what the user wants, but instead only see a large collection of unrelated detail?

Organizing requirments in categories can help to provide a mental framework, but navigation becomes difficult past 2-3 levels. It’s becoming apparent to me that in order to bridge the gap, some diagramming and coalescing of requirements into pictoral form must be provided. The question is, of the tens of possible types of models, which types are most effective and therefore worth the time?

I’ve found a site that details numerous types of models and diagrams, and provides handwritten examples of each. The silver-bullet takeway from this site is the following:

“know a wide variety of modeling techniques … apply the right artifact(s) for the situation at hand.”

My current problem is that I’ve been away from my brief studies in UML during my Master’s program for six years, and I don’t have command of that wide variety of modeling techniques. I have, therefore, just shared with you the newest item on my personal to-do list…