How UML Modeling Tools can help a project ???

[maddyashik]

Hello all,

This is Ashik from Wipro Tech., India. I am in the process of performing a Benefit Analysis on

"How best UML modelling tools can help a project"?

All I need to know is:-

1) How UML modeling tools help improve the productivity of a project ? If so to what extent it can (%) ?

2) What would be the "Design effort Reduction" / "Cost reduction " due to tool usage ?

3) Explain the scenario ?

Project - A -> UML tools used (Vs) Project - B -> Not used

What improvement in design metrics will Proj. A have compared to Project B ?

4) Why the design tools awareness is very less when compared to other tools for Testing ?

Expectatios:-

* I am expecting answers to all above queries from Experts all over.

* Also it would be great if someone could send me answers for different UML tools available in the market

Eg. Rational Rose -> Prod Improvement - X %
Effort Reduction - Y%
Cost Reduction - Z%

* Finally if some one could provide me case studies which can show that productivity is directly proportional to the CASE tool usage it would be helpful.



Thanks in advance


Ashik
---------------------
Software Engineering Tools Consultant
WIPRO Technologies
INDIA

[thomaskilian]

Maybe you could ask fewer and simpler questions and not one that requires a thesis as answer  

[Bruno.Cossi]

Interesting, Ashik, given that your company bills itself as UML savvy, skilled in using modeling tools, etc. :-) Perhaps you could ask one of your colleagues?
(I am being sarcastic, but no offense meant).

Now, the sarcasm aside, you won't find simple answers to your questions, you may want to rethink what you are asking for.
From the project management prospective (which is where the productivity measures fall in), UML modeling tool will not improve the productivity. In fact, (a bit of useless trivia here), there are no statistics suggesting that a productivity is increased with the use of object oriented languages over less advanced ones.
Furthermore, tools barely improve the productivity. Your SDLC, your methodology does. Implementation of UML modeling tool usually goes hand in hand with implementation of a relevant methodology. That is where you will (or should) see productivity gains.
Having said that, there are modeling tools I like, tools that I like less, tools that I do not like much. However, as long as they work, you will not see significantly different impact on the project (short of the cost, both direct and indirectm of the tools) varied by tool.

Hope this helps!

Bruno

[Jamie Cash]

From the projects that I have worked on, I have proven time and time again that a project that has analysis, design and implementation phases takes about the same amount of time end to end as a project that has just analysis and implementation phases, but the project that uses all 3 phases is far easier to maintain and has fewer bugs than a project with only 2 phases. Another benifit in using UML to design the project is that you will end up with a lot of techinical documentation after the project is completed. As far as tools is concerned, if you want the design and development stages to be tightly coupled and iteritive it is necessary to use a UML tool that supports full round trip engineering, most of the free tools such as Argo and Jude do not support this but EA and RRose do.

[mikewhit]

In principle, having the design phase, producing design artifacts in a model, better allows the possibility of design reuse for a subsequent or related project with common domains.

This is more 'bang per buck' than plain code reuse.

It also permits a test team to independently look at the organisation of the system without having to know the details of the code, and design testing accordingly.

[thomaskilian]

But did you ever encounter the situation that only few - or worse just the team leader - knows UML and/or a CASE tool? Would you start forcing your team to use the tool or do you have your project handled manually? Personally I gave up convincing others and stay with the manual method   Happily I can use EA in some project even with more staff involved than me alone  

[Rob@Fid]

1. Sarcasm greatly appreciated here........

2. Many of the benefits are cumulative over several projects and so harder to sell to non-believers.

3. Traceablility of objects - from Objectives, through Requirements, onto Use Cases, Screen specs and (if I can find a developer (I'm a BA) willing) presumably down to classes. You can then see the impact of any change at any point. I've yet to find any one that can do this in Word.

[Rob_M]

For a contrarian perspective on tools, I suggest reading Agile Modelling by Scott Ambler - he has some keen insights. Don't let the tool get in the way of doing the work.