How do you capture questions that need to be answered in UML?

Question

Regardless of the tool being used e.g. EA Sparx, Visual Paradigm, etc how do you capture questions raised during analysis or modeling?

Do you simply use notes or is there a standard approach? For example how do I capture the question "Is there a need to backup data to an off or on premise vendor?"

Answer 1

There is whole books about these topics (esp. Robertson& Robertson, Mastering the Requirements Process, ISBN-13: 978-0321815743) so I seriously doubt that there will be a short answer here that extensively covers your question.

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What do you mean by "questions that need to be answered in UML"? There is of course scenarios where a UML notations is very useful. But it remains one modeling language of many, and there is alternatives not only regarding the tool but also regarding the notation.

Edit

For open questions, you probably best use diagram notes as you suggested yourself. But that is a UML-internal view. I'd use an issue tracker like Atlassian Jira to have a better overview and all kinds of better usability. You can then use an add-in to sync with EA.

Normally, your questions will result from requirements. You can put your open questions into the "notes" field of requirement elements. UML does not provide any diagram type to capture requirements so you'll have to rely on modeling non-UML requirement elements.

The requirement elements in Sparx EA are not (!) standardized but a proprietary solution by Sparx. They are somewhat similar to the Requirements Diagram in OMG SysML (Systems Modeling language). The two highest priced editions of EA do also offer SysML support where you can explicitly create such requirement diagrams using the correct SysML syntax. SysML is an extension to UML, so they'll work fine together. You can also create <<trace>> relationships. For the other editions of EA there is a SysML plugin. The same is true for MagicDraw.

Answer 2

I found a method in which documents can be captured using EA Sparx. Hopefully it helps someone in the future - Requirements Gathering