📅 Date: May 26–27, 2026

📍Sofia, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 

15 Noemvri St., Ivan Evstatiev Geshоv Hall

🎤 Working Language: English

WHAT IS THIS MASTERCLASS?

Use cases are the most effective way to communicate how a system — or an organisational process — should behave, from sponsors and business owners through to developers. When written well, they align everyone around a shared understanding and make requirements concrete, testable, and actionable.
This masterclass is not a set of lectures. There are no slides to sit through — only worked examples, small-group exercises, and reflective discussion. You will write, review, and improve real use cases during the session.
The masterclass uses examples drawn specifically from digital cultural heritage to develop the skill of creating use cases that are short, clear, and effective. Use on agile projects is naturally included — Dr Cockburn is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto.
This is the first masterclass of the FOCUS project, designed both to build individual capability and to directly support the development of FOCUS's own use cases and scenarios for future collaborations in the digital cultural heritage domain.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Anyone tasked with writing, reviewing, or working from use cases, whether from an organisational process perspective or from the perspective of describing the behaviour of a technical system. This includes:

• Digital heritage professionals specifying new systems or workflows
• Researchers and practitioners working within or collaborating with the FOCUS project
• Software developers and architects involved in digital heritage requirements gathering

Attendance is limited.

How to attend?

For requests on available places, please email Ms Teodora Gandova at office@openresearch.bg.

WHAT YOU WILL LEAVE WITH?

• A clear understanding of what a use case is, what it is good for, and how to write one well
• The ability to collect and organise users' goals for a system and draft its functional requirements
• Awareness of the limitations of use cases and when alternative requirements forms are more appropriate
• Developed personal preferences through practice — with real peer review and discussion

WHAT TOPICS WILL BE COVERED?

The session moves through a structured sequence, each concept building on the last:

• What is a use case? What does one look like?
• How do use cases fit into the wider requirements process and documentation?
• The four steps in writing a use case
• Finding the boundaries of the system
• Identifying actors and their goals
• Establishing the scope and level of the use case
• Writing a simple scenario of usage
• Searching for exceptions and failure situations
• Linking and layering use cases for larger systems
• Protecting requirements against technology change
• Making use cases easier to read
• Are use cases in the digital cultural heritage domain more challenging than elsewhere?

HOW THE SESSION WORKS?

The masterclass follows a consistent rhythm: a concept is introduced, small groups complete an exercise, and the whole room discusses their results. Several domains of varying difficulty are used as exercise contexts.
For each exercise, participants write a use case, peer-review the writing, and discuss the issues that arise — developing their own style and preferences through practice. In this way, each person participates in both hands-on exercises and group discussion throughout the day.
This is part of the Heart of Agile sequence: a working class with no slides, only illustrations of good work, exercises, activities, and reflective discussions on how to improve.