Actor Card

Definition

Actor Card
(a.k.a., External Card)

a requirements work product consisting of a large index card that is used during the requirements identification task to informally document a single external

Objectives

The typical objective of an actor card is to:

• Partially capture the context of the application, application domain, or component.
• Informally document the important information about the external such as name, definition stereotype, responsibilities, relationship, and required expertise (if the external is a human actor).

Benefits

The typical benefits of an actor card are:

• External cards enable the requirements team to quickly organize requirements during a requirements identification interview or workshop.
• External cards provide input to the operational requirements section of the system requirements specification.

Contents

The typical contents of an actor card are the external’s:

• Name.
• Definition.
• Stereotype. (e.g., human actor, data repository, hardware external, software external, system external).
• Responsibilities
• Relationship (e.g., client, server, peer) to the application, application domain, or component.
• Required Expertise (if a human actor).
• State Model.

Stakeholders

The typical stakeholders of an actor card are:

• Producer: Requirements Team
• Evaluators: None
• Approvers: None
• Maintainers: None
• Users:
  • Requirements Team, which uses the actor cards as input to the operational requirements section of the requirements executive summary and the system requirements specification.

Phases

Actor cards are typically produced during the following phases:

• Business Strategy: Completed
• Construction: Deleted or Maintained
• Initiation: Completed
• Construction: Deleted or Maintained
• Delivery: Deleted or Maintained
• Usage: Deleted or Maintained
• Retirement: Deleted or Archived

Preconditions

External cards typically can be started if the following preconditions hold:

• The requirements team is staffed and adequately trained in requirements identification.
• Actor domain experts are available.

Inputs

The typical inputs to an actor card include:

• Work Products:
  • Application Vision Statement
  • Customer Analysis
  • User Analysis
  • Existing customer documentation
• Stakeholders:
  • Customer domain experts
  • Developer domain experts
  • Users

Guidelines

• There is typically no need to maintain the actor cards once their information has been incorporated into the operational requirements section of the system requirements specification.
• Actor cards are typically developed incrementally, iteratively, and in parallel with other requirements work products (e.g., use case cards, requirements executive summary, system requirements specification, glossary, and domain model document).

Conventions

Actor cards are typically constrained by the following conventions:

• Actor Guidelines
• Inspection Checklist

Examples

• Electronic Auction and Sales System Actor Card