We need a common language for communication between prospect/customer and consultant/developer before we can construct a shared understanding of what is required from a CMS. As Jon points out natural language is pretty good at that but if structured a certain you have Use Cases. Supplement with Use Case diagrams and you've got a good starting point for the under hood analysis.
Other UML diagrams aren't that hard for non-tech people to understand that includes the activity diagram - that most people will recognise as a fancy arse form of flow chart - therefore quite useful for expressing workflow. Recently I find myself documenting existing systems using deployment diagrams as the first step, using these to confirm my understanding of these systems with the system engineers supporting them. Sounds like I drank the UML kool aid... but... I believe that UML is a toolbox with tools that are appropiate for modelling (and therefore communicating) specific aspects of a system to communicate to a specific audience. There remain other tools and toolboxes...and you are allowed to use what ever mix is appropiate. You also don't have to cross every 't' and dot each 'i' with any of these diagrams, you will not be marked on the completeness of your UML diagrams but judged only by the customer's assessment of the delivered CMS against their perverse value judgements of what quality is, i.e. their requirements, not your document of their requirements. When it comes to describing the data within a system at the functional requirements stage I am still a HUGE proponent of Object Role Modelling (ORM) which uses graphic notation and natural language to describe a conceptal data model. Using it you can present a bunch of sentences to your customer which they can understand. When you have an agreed shared understanding of their data domain you can generate a entity relationship diagram, tweak and spit out a DDL for your relational db of choice. For more info on ORM check out http://www.orm.net/ note although Dr Terry Halpin is now employed by Microsoft the ORM tool InfoModeller has been acquired many times, lastly from Visio. The new tool is part of Microsoft Enterprise mumble thingy but the old tool circa acquisition from Visio is still available from the unsupported downloads page at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=27489 -c- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.394 / Virus Database: 224 - Release Date: 3/10/02 -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.
