The first thing I noticed is that this book is almost 25 years old. That’s an eternity in computer science, especially in a non-mathematical subject. It was written under the “waterfall” paradigm of software development, before agile took over most of the software engineering world. Instead of a page or two, waterfall specifications could require a binder of dozens, if not hundreds, of pages. This book describes “use cases” instead of the “user stories” that agile commends. Why is this book worth someone’s time? In other words, why did I choose to read it?
For two reasons. First, I’m a big fan of studying history. I’ll admit that I didn’t read every page closely in 2025, but I picked up on why agile design documents are organized a certain way. Knowing the history of the field allows me to understand the present better – and theoretically, be prepared for the future better.
Second, most of the literature I’ve read on user stories is overly simplistic. They don’t go into enough detail about what to choose and how. When communicating with my developers, I want to understand what possibilities can and cannot be communicated. To see the global set of options, I had to go back in time to when large design documents were the norm. Just like when someone reads Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales to understand how modern literature took its form, I can see all the glorious option that writing a user story encompasses.
Realistically, I don’t expect this book to be explored by a ton of people now. After all, it’s almost 25 years old! But thumbing through its pages enlightened me a bit as I start to communicate my ideas to the developers I work with. This was the greatest book on use cases in the waterfall era, written by the greatest expert on the subject, so I’m better primed to jump into agile practices and whatever era comes next.
Writing Effective Use Cases
By Alistair Cockburn
Copyright (c) 2001
Addison-Wesley
ISBN13 9780201702255
Page Count: 270
Genre: Software Engineering
www.amazon.com