Example

Definition

Example

a convention consisting of all or part of a work product that can be used as a guide by persons who are responsible for producing such a work product

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, examples are part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Convention
• Subclasses: None
• Example Instances:
  • Example Features Matrix
  • Example System Requirements Specification

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of an example are to:

• Enable people to perform their tasks more efficiently and correctly.
• Improve productivity.
• Improve the quality of the associated work products.
• Show what all or part of a work product should look like if correctly produced.
• Provide guidance regarding the size and scope of a completed work product.

Guidelines

• Every work product produced by a process should probably have an associated good example that people can follow.
• Whereas many examples cover only part of a work product, complete examples can provide guidance as to the size and scope of the associated work product.
• Training materials should often include both good and bad examples.
• In this website, examples are stored with and primarily accessible via the associated work product.
• A process may include many kinds of examples including:
  • Types:
    • Example documents
    • Example software component source code
  • Fidelity:
    • Good examples, which show how a work product should be produced.
    • Bad examples, which warn of mistakes that are commonly made.
  • Completeness:
    • Partial examples, which are quick and inexpensive to produce.
    • Complete examples, which provide guidance on the size and scope of a work product.
• More examples can be found by using the search word “example” in the site search webpage.