Work Guidelines: Role Playing

Each member of the group is assigned a role that is of interest to the system. Roles are users, the system itself, other systems, and sometimes entities that are maintained by the system. The group then walks through how the system is used. Along the way, there will be discussions about who is responsible for what–take notes on the responsibilities of each role. Having the system analyst play the role of the user or customer helps gain real insights into the problem domain.

As a frame work for the role-play, you may perform scripted walkthroughs of how the system is used. If you have some use cases outlined, you can use them as a basis for the script. The walkthrough can also be performed at a business level, using the business use cases as a basis for the script.

Another technique often combined with role playing is Class Responsibility Collaboration (CRC) cards.