[Editions for: Astah Professional, Astah Community, Astah SysML and Astah GSN]

When you draw models, each model element will have shadow by default.
This is how to remove the shadow.
(1) Go to [Tool] – [System Properties] and select [Diagram Editor] from the left menu
(2) Take a check off from [Add shadow on model elements] and click [Apply] – [OK].
When you do this, make sure that [Apply the project settings to the current project] option is checked.

Astah System Properties

Here’s the same diagram without shadows.

Cheers,
SJ

One of Astah’s unique features is an integration of UML/DFD/ERD diagrams and Mind Maps. One example is to generate UseCase diagrams from Mind Map. Gather user requirements using a Mind Map and then convert them into Actors and UseCases. (Read this white paper for its practice or watch demo video if you are interested.)

Check out the demo video!

And  today we received a new question regarding the conversion between Mind Map and ER Diagram.

“Can Mind Map topics be converted into ER Entities? like Parent topics as ER Entities and its child topics as its Attributes?”

Astah itself does not have its ability so we provided a way to do so using this Script Plug-in. Script Plug-in is a perfect and easiest way to add customized functionalities to Astah quickly. All you do is to write up its script and let it run in Astah. Java Script, ECMA Script and Apple Script are supported. We have some prepared Java Scripts for you such as to add Setters and Getters, stereotypes, list up all the Classes, Mind Map Topics..etc. Download Script Samples

Here is a sample of how Mind Map topics can be imported as ER Entities + Attributes.
First define the ER Entities and its attributes in Mind Map (ER Entity in the 1st level and its Attributes in the 2nd level) like the figure below.

Copy and paste this Script in Script Window and run.

Then these Mind Map topics will be imported as ER Entities and its Attributes as defined.

To draw these ER models on the diagram, create or open an ER Diagram and just drag them onto the Diagram.

There are million things you can do by using this Script Plug-in. Refer to the API documents and customize your Astah to do more what you’d like to do!

PS: Thank you Eldo for requesting this feature that gave me a chance to introduce this useful Script Plug-in to more users. :)

Cheers,
SJ

GSN stands for “Goal Structuring Notation” and it visualizes an argument structure that supports a claim to be true. In the industry in which safety assurance is critical, standards such as ISO61508(general), ISO26262(automotive), DO-178B(airplane), etc require documentation of “Safety Cases”, and GSN is the standard format to document the cases graphically.

But, GSN itself is a simple notation of argumentation structures and has more broader applications. Here I show you some general concepts in GSN using an example.

An example of GSN (mathematics)

The following is an example of GSN that illustrates a mathematical proof of a statement using “mathematical induction”. And the statement is:

“The sum of the natural numbers 1..n equals to n(n+1)/2”.

An example GSN (Mathematical Induction)

• In this case, the “Goal” is the statement to prove. In patents or law cases, “Claim” is more a proper word.
• There are many ways to prove this statement. And here, “induction” is chosen. This node is called “Strategy”.
• Once this strategy is chosen, the goal can be divided into several “Subgoals”. In this case, the proof of the first statement is divided into
  1. Base: prove that it holds when n=1
  2. Induction Step: Assuming that it holds when n=k and prove that it holds when n=k+1.
• And the terminals (leafs) are called “Solutions” or “Evidences” which provide the reasoning of the (divided end) goals.

Applications…

The most demanding needs we can now see is in the automotive, avionics, railway, robotics and medical industries which require “safety” cases in certifications or regulations.

The example below is a safety case argument from “The Community Standards(see below)”.

Safety Case Example (click to magnify)

Other “Cases” like “Dependability Cases(D-Cases)”, “Security Cases” and more generally, “Assurance Cases”(an umbrella word for cases that assures some property of the system) can be visualized in the form of GSN, too.

In broader contexts, GSN can be used to visualize arguments including;

• Proof in mathematics(the above example)
• Debate strategy
• Logical argument structure of academic papers and their references
• Law case in court(supports/objects the claim)
• Claims in patents

Where to see further discussions

The most stable and referenced documentation of GSN is called “GSN Community Standard

• GSN Community Standard (Version 1.0 PDF)

At OMG(Object Management Group), GSN is (semantically) being standardized as “Assurance Case”.

• SACM(Structured Assurance Case Metamodel)
• ARM(Argumentation Meta Model)

SACM is composed of ARM and the other specification called SEAM(Software Assurance Evidence Metamodel).

By the way… about England

The theoretical foundation of GSN is the argumentation theory by Stephen E. Toulmin(1958, “The uses of argument”) called the “Toulmin Model”.

Toulmin is born in England and influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein. And Prof. Tim Kelly who contributed the first and most of the application of the Toulmin Model to the computer science and industry area is also based in England.

I visited Tim Kelly in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York last year to learn what is happening in this domain, and I found that he was a very young and nice professor, thinking deeply about application of the theory to the real world.

Try GSN

We’ve developed a GSN editor called “Astah GSN”. Like I mentioned above, GSN is a very simple notation to present the argument structures. Try making one using our free trial.
Download Astah GSN Free Trial: http://astah.net/editions/gsn/download

-Kenji

For Mac users, we just released a bug-fix version for Astah Professional and Astah Community on August 18th(Mon) which has fixed the following two critical issues.
– Printing fails if an Instance Specification name ends with a non-ASCII character
– Astah hangs frequently when PopClip, BetterTouchTool, iSnap or Window Magnet are launched at the same time

If you are using Mac, please update your Astah.
Download (Re-download from here and install)

If you are using Karabiner, there are known issues as below.
– Astah launches in minimum window size when it is supposed to be in maximum size
– Unable to input by keyboard and all the menus go inactivate when creating new projects etc.

These issues will be fixed when you update your Karabiner to the next version which is planned to be released very soon.

If you have any questions, please email us or post your question on our Q&A form.

Cheers,
SJ

Kabuto (Samurai Warrior Helmet)

Do you know Origami?

The wikipedia entry “origami” says:

Origami (折り紙, from ori meaning “folding”, and kami meaning “paper” (kami changes to gami due to rendaku) is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD at the latest and was popularized outside of Japan in the mid-1900s. It has since evolved into a modern art form. The goal of this art is to transform a flat sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques, and as such the use of cuts or glue are not considered to be origami….

We Japanese people (almost) all know how to fold a Crane, Kabuto, and other famous Origami themes, but it is hard to “teach” foreign people how to do it, or more correctly, “how to make it beautiful”.

Each written step of the process is not very difficult. But there should be some secret know-how (or “implicit” knowledge) which is hidden behind the process but makes the result a lot better than just following the steps. Just like cooking. Recipes are composed of ingredients and steps, but a good cook knows more than that.

Nobu Kobayashi(friend of mine) tries using GSN to show the process of folding origami step by step, and at the same time, making the hidden part of the process explicit. Here’s an example GSN from the process of folding a Kabuto (Samurai warrior helmet).

Steps to fold a Kabuto (Japanese Warrior Helmet) Origami

GSN is an abbreviation of “Goal Structuring Notation”, a method to make an argument structure visible(see “What is GSN?” another article of mine with an example from mathematics and industrial context). It is usually used in engineering fields to visualize Assurance Cases (including safety, security and dependability cases).

Let me try to explain what he is doing… Illustrating Origami process with secret tips.

1. The goal is to “fold a cool Kabuto”, claimed using yellow ■ Goal node(G1).
2. The goal is divided into “Steps”, using yellow sub-goals(G2-G9) and blue ■ Strategy nodes(S1).
3. Steps(sub-goals) are illustrated with pictures, using green ■ Solution nodes(Sn1-Sn8).
4. And, tips, ropes, know-how behind the steps are written using pink ■ Context nodes(C1-C5) attached to some of the key steps.

To create the GSN of Origami, he interviewed several colleagues to elicit know-how by asking:

“Do you have some thoughts in mind when you follow this step?”

The thoughts are the implicit knowledge behind the stepwise process and he tried to make it explicit.

Nobu is trying to use GSN in his company to make engineering review process (software documentation review) effective. This Origami example is mapped onto the review process also so as to make the steps explicit and at the same time to extract the “implicit” knowledge from the  process to increase knowledge assets of the organization.

Nobuhide Kobayashi, is a practitioner of software engineering and D-Case(Dependability Cases) based in Nagoya, in Japan. Here’s this handsome engineer :)

Nobu Kobayashi (quoted from his corporate site) http://www.denso-create.jp/eye/index4.html

-Kenji

Astah has several alignment features to align UML model elements nicely with easy step.

Example) Feature to align model elements vertically

But still sometimes you may want to move model elements individually just to place them in a right place. In that case, hold [Command] key down when you move them, so that they will move 1 pixel at a time.

 
Also you can show Grid on the diagram from [Tool] – [System Properties] setting. See detail (TIPS: Show Grid in diagram)

Cheers,
SJ

Wonderful news for Astah users who create documents using Sphinx.

Mr. Takeshi Komiya has created a way to embed Astah UML diagram images into Sphinx. Click here or image below to read how to use this fabulous feature!
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sphinxcontrib-astah

He’s made this possible by using “astah-command.sh” which is used to export diagram images from Astah by command line.
[TIPS] Exporting diagram to images using the command line

Give it a try and let us know or the developer (@tk0miya) feedback!
Hats off to him from us. :)

Cheers,
SJ

“SinelaboreRT” is a source code generator designed for embedded software developers that generates readable and maintainable code from UML statemachine diagrams and Activity diagrams. It can of course generate code from Astah.

Peter Mueller, the author of this tool and I have been in contact for a long time and he quickly catches any changes on Astah on each release and updates his tool accordingly and immediately. Very trusted, keen and promising person and so is the tool I see.

Download and learn more about SinelaboreRT from here.

If you are already using this tool with Astah, here’re the latest updates on version 3.6.
– Region Support in Statemachine diagrams
– Generate code from UML Activity diagram support

Cheers,
SJ

This is a guest post by Mr. Nobu Kobayashi from Denso Create, Inc from Japan.

In this post, he tries to demonstrate an effective usage of GSN and UML in systems engineering activities(modeling, documentation, design, and especially their reviews) using a parallel analogy of an easy example .i.e. Origami.

Last week we introduced Nobu’s idea of how to extract implicit knowledge in Origami via GSN. There are many Origami how-to books, but even though everybody follows the exact same instruction, the results will come differently. Some turn out sharp (like right one in the image below) and some turn messy (like the left one)… So what makes the difference? It clearly shows that the complete instruction is just not enough and there are some secret know-hows to make the difference. Then how could we extract those know-hows? (Click the image below to read the last post.)

How can we teach someone to create beautiful Origami Kabuto (Japanese warrior helmet)?

Kabuto (Japanese Warrior Helmet)

So below is the diagram he drew that shows the process of how to fold beautiful Kabuto which is a Japanese warrior helmet (see the right image) with Origami papers and secret know-hows (implicit knowledge) extracted by using “Context” node in GSN (Goal Structuring Notation).

Figure1. Steps to fold a Kabuto (Japanese Warrior Helmet) with Origami papers. Read more at http://changevision.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/how-to-make-it-better-extract-implicit-knowledge-via-gsn/

Now we have a question.

“Is this map sufficient for everybody else to fold beautiful Origami with?”

When this diagram was created, these secret know-hows (noted in pink) were picked up from ‘what we tried to be careful at some steps’ with an aim for creating a beautiful Origami Kabuto. But what is ‘a beautiful Origami Kabuto?’ – each person may have different answers to this question. Without sharing the definition or one’s idea of ‘what Beautiful Origrami Kabuto is’, this diagram could be just another instruction of folding Kabuto with someone’s tips and might not be acceptable for the others who have different sense for ‘Beautiful Origami Kabuto’. Then in order to make this map acceptable and work for anybody to fold a beautiful Origami with, what could we do?

Trying a different way to extract the implicit knowledge

The answer is to visualize the way how those implicit knowledge were extracted and make it explicit. Once people understand the fundamental assumptions that those implicit knowledge is on, they will understand and accept them more easily.
The first step I did was to model the structure of Origami Kabuto (Figure.2) using UML.

Figure.2. – Structure of Origami

Origami Kabuto inherits three characteristics, vertex, side and face, and it consists of 4 parts called ‘Hachi’ (the main part of its hat), ‘Kuwagata’ (a hoe-shaped helmet crest), ‘Kuwagata-dai’ (A crest stand), and ‘Mabisasi’ (a visor). In the Figure.2, dotted arrow represents the relation of two parts that how one is folded will affect the size of the other part. (e.g. If Mabisasi becomes bigger, the size of Kuwagata-dai will get smaller and may look unbalanced together). I believe the model in Figure.2 is easy to understand because it shows the nature of the structure of Origami.

Then I did extract implicit knowledge. This time I defined the “Beautiful Kabuto” as one consists of 4 parts which are all in suitable size to make a good balance as a whole and is symmetric. So I chose ‘Suitable size’ and ‘Symmetry’ as essential conditions to derive ‘Criteria of Beautiful Kabuto’ and extracted the implicit knowledge by checking these conditions against the structure of Origami Kabuto (Figure.2).

Figure.3 – Tips for how to make a beautiful Origami Kabuto

Let me explain this new diagram – Figure.3

1. The top goal is “Criteria of beauty for Kabuto is accepted’, claimed using yellow ■ Goal node (G1) on the top.
2. ‘Suitable size’ and ‘Symmetry’ are adopted as key points shown in pink ■ Context (C1) to derive the criteria of ‘Beautiful Kabuto’. This is placed on the top as this is the core guideline to achieve the top goal and applies to the whole nodes in this diagram.
3. Top Goal is divided into two groups “Individual part of Kabuto” and “Relation of parts which affect to each other’s size” based on its concept (C2) and those are broken down further to Sub Goals (G4-9) according to blue ■ Strategy nodes.
4. All the implicit knowledge is written in Pink notes at the bottom which were extracted by checking the two key rules stated in C1 for each Solution node (Sn1-6).

Share the context using GSN before start disussing

I believe this new diagram helps more people to fold it better than with the other diagram I drew in the last post because it now shares ‘what a Beautiful Origami is’ with all the extracted implicit knowledge. Once you know the foundation where all the tips come from, those will be more convincing, understandable and easy to accept.

Let’s see this in the software development scene. If everyone involved in a same project could share and understand the same context, we could avoid easy mistakes that are caused by the recognition gap. (I have happened to design software using wrong kind of documents..etc.)

“Visualize your idea and build a common understanding with the others.”

This is easy to say but difficult to achieve – but I believe GSN can be its effective solution.

At last, I’d like to say thank you for Change Vision-san for developing Astah GSN which provides the features very attentive that help us draw GSN. For example, ‘comment feature’ is a good solution when I want to write detailed information into a Solution node to explain leaf goal’s validity. I hope Astah to continue growing and keep its attentiveness for all the users.

Thank you.

Nobu Kobayashi

A Practical Guide to SysML

I had this great opportunity to do a short interview with Sandy Friedenthal, who is an independent consultant in MBSE(Model-based Systems Engineering), and I would call him Father of SysML :)

He previously worked at Lockheed Martin, a large aerospace corporation, where he was responsible for advancing the practice of model-based systems engineering across the company. He was a leader of the effort to develop the OMG Systems Modeling Language (SysML), and is co-author of ‘A Practical Guide to SysML’. He also is cochair of the INCOSE Model-based Systems Engineering initiative.

Question: How does model-based systems engineering relate to systems engineering?

Systems engineering (SE) is a multi-disciplinary approach to ensure the pieces of the system work together to achieve the objectives of the whole. Each engineering discipline, such as software, mechanical, and electrical engineering, focus on their discipline specific aspects of the system, whereas SE address aspects of the system that span across the other disciplines and subsystems to ensure a balanced system solution that addresses the customer needs.

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is systems engineering with models. The system models are a primary artifact that are managed and controlled throughout the development process. Although there are many different kinds of models, emphasis is placed on the system architecture model to help integrate the various aspects of the system together.

Question: Why do MBSE?

MBSE is often contrasted with more traditional document based approaches to systems engineering. In a document based approach, the systems engineering data is often contained in traditional documentation such as text specifications, spreadsheets, and powerpoint slides. The information about the system requirements and high level design is spread across many different documents, and is difficult to maintain and ensure consistency. In MBSE, this same information is captured more formally in a system model, which enables the information to be more consistent, traceable, and more precise.

Question: How does SysML relate to MBSE?

SysML is a graphical modeling language, and is a key enabler of MBSE. It is sometimes called a descriptive modeling language that is used to describe multiple views of the system architecture. This contrasts with analytical models such as Simulink, or geometric models used in CAD. However, the architecture model is intended to be integrated with other analytical and geometric models, typically through third part plugins in a system modeling tool

Question: What are some of the essential aspects of an MBSE approach?

A practitioner of MBSE must learn the modeling language, the modeling tool, and the MBSE method used to perform systems engineering. This of course must augment the domain specific knowledge required for the system you are designing.

An organization that wishes to adopt MBSE must develop the infrastructure that includes the tools, methods, and training, and provide skilled people, tools, and processes to the projects for them to implement MBSE.

Question: How does an organization get started in MBSE?

There are few essentials to get started. First, an organization needs a sponsor and a technical advocate who can lead this initiative. It is often advantageous to integrate this effort with other existing improvement initiatives where this makes sense. As a starting point, it is important to understand the current practice and systemic issues that MBSE may be able to address. It is important to clearly determine and document the motivation for why you are doing MBSE in your organization. The key stakeholders should then develop a strategy and plan for their MBSE approach to address these issues. This plan includes the activities to incrementally develop the infrastructure and deploy this capability to projects. The results should be evaluated as a basis for continuous improvement.

Thank you very much, Sandy!

This video is shot on Sept.17, during the period of OMG technical meetings in Austin. I was there to attend robotics and safety assurance meetings, and Sandy was there for leading SEDIG(Systems Engineering Domain Interest Group).

At astah.net, we provide services and tools for SysML. As a tool vender, we’d like to contribute to the community via astah(our SysML tool), a simple, easy-to-use, multi-platform tool support for MBSE and SysML from Japan(Yes, we based in Tokyo, Japan). To evaluate our SysML tool, please download a free trial from http://astah.net/sysml.

-Kenji

It’s been a very exciting week since our big announcement with news below a week ago. We’ve been getting many positive feedback on the latest version and receiving orders for new “Astah Engineering Pack license” which is very exciting!
(1) Astah Professional & Community Version 6.9 Released
(2) Astah SysML Version 1.3 Released & Astah SysML price deduction
(3) New reasonable ‘bundled-pack’ option – Astah Engineering Pack available

Let me go through each topic quickly and share new update with you which you don’t want to miss.

(1) Astah Professional & Community Version 6.9 Release
This is a major update after 8 months. Many implementations are made which came from our users (Thank you!) and one of the biggest is a new option to make it extremely easier to edit existing Sequence diagrams.
Check our new improvements made in version 6.9 at New Features page.

(See all in New Features page)

We’ve made a short video to introduce some of the new features in 6.9.

(2) Astah SysML Version 1.3 Released & its price deduction
Astah SysML version 1.3 has been released with several improvements based on users’ feedback and bug-fixes.
Also we reduced Astah SysML’s pricing to make it consistent with other edition’s annual licenses. Now you can purchase Astah SysML for $119/90Euro (Was $258/340Euro).

(3) New ‘bundled-pack’ option – Astah Engineering Pack license available

Astah Engineering Pack – use Astah Professional/SysML/GSN with one single license!

This is very exciting that finally we have a bundled license pack that enables you to use full features of Astah’s 3 editions (Astah Professional, Astah SysML and Astah GSN) with one single license!
Normal price is $199/150 Euro ($357/270 Euro if you buy them individually) but we are throwing a 30% off campaign starting next week. So you get an access to all the 3 editions with only $139/105 Euro! More information will be up on Astah Engineering Pack page on Oct 20(Mon). Stay tuned and don’t miss out this opportunity!

Cheers,
SJ

Michael Chonoles, the author of “UML 2 for Dummies”, talks about “Modeling Myths” – damaging misconceptions people have that prevent them from adopting modeling in their projects.

Introduction to Modeling Myths

Modeling Myths are these damaging of misconceptions people have that prevent them  from adopting modeling or UML on the projects.

Do I Really Need to Model Everything?

Do I model the extra information? The redundant information? It seems very expensive, very time consuming and needs too much resources. And the problem is, that they are really right. People who think that modeling everything is expensive are quite correct. But luckily, you don’t have to model all of it. You just you have to model “the biggest risks”.

Every project, every team has different risks. You will hear some examples you might find similar on your project.

-Domain

For example, you might find that not everyone understands the domain or the problem space. So, what you might use is conceptualization and domain-style modeling of your Class Diagrams or State Diagrams, so that it shows what the real world is like.

-Purpose

You might have problems where people on your project don’t know what the purpose of the project is. What are the things, what are the problems that you are solving. Well, use UseCases and Actors to show what you are trying to accomplish.

-Organization

Sometimes you have a problem with the organization. People don’t quite understand what tasks they are assigned, and who’s doing what. Use Package diagrams, or sometimes Use Case diagrams to help you split them up into individual tasks and problems to work on.

-Implementation Approach

Sometimes you find that there are implementation issues. People don’t really get a feel for how this thing might be implemented. Use Sequence diagrams or Collaboration diagrams to help you understand how that might work together.

Donts

Don’t model things like Legacy Code if it’s well understood. Don’t model statemachines of simple on/off switches because they’’re trivial, they’’re on or off –and it’s a waste of time.

Don’t model parts of the system that are already known or similar to the other parts. If you model it the first time, and the second time around, you are modeling a different part of the system that works like the first, just reference the first one.

Don’t model anything that doesn’t really address a risk. Spend your time modeling where there’’s a big return on investment.

Let’s give an example that might help you understand.

Confusing Model

You can see here some modeling that is a little confusing. If everyone in the project is working on different parts, you are going to come up with something pretty confusing and hard to understand, and hard to see if there is any problems. So, what we are going to have to do is take some of this stuff out.

There’s some stuff that’s “already known“. We’ll, take that out. We don’’t need to model that.

But there’’s more. It’’s still confusing. Let’s take out stuff, and not model anything doesn’t address a need. Let’s get rid of that.

It’’s still confusing, still hard to see. What else could we avoid spending or wasting money, and time, and resources on? We could have not modeled the “Unwanted Information“.

So now, things are improving. What else could we take out? Things that are trivial like the statemachines, the easy stuff. Let’s get rid of the easy stuff. And we are getting better.

And get rid of “Useless Detail” . So what’s left is the biggest risk.

But now we can see there’s some problems. Things aren’t straight. That’s one of our problems. We didn’t do it really right, so we can straighten this.

And then we see one more problem left. The serious one. We spelled “risk” incorrectly. So now we fixed that. If we would have started with just the area of biggest risk, we would have addressed our problems and not spent our resources on things we didn’t need.

Thank you Michael for this great topic!

-Kenji

We’ve received this following request from one of our customers.
“I have made Requirement diagrams and now I want to convert them into UML UseCase Diagrams. And in my diagram, each Requirement has an unique ID. So when I convert those Requirements into UseCases, I want converted UseCases to have the ID that original Requirement had.”

This feature isn’t in Astah Professional yet, so we made it possible by using Script Plug-in. This is how we made it happen. We wrote a script using Astah API to convert the existing Requirement diagrams into UML UseCase diagram as below and let it run in Astah. And it performed to let:
– Requirements to be converted into UseCase models
- UseCase have the same ID that original Requirement has as UseCase’s stereotype
- UseCase have the same ID that original Requirement has in UseCase’s Definition

Our customer had a concern that letting UseCase has its ID as stereotype will not comply with UML’s specification. But sticking to the standard is not necessary all the time. Every team has their own way to model that works the best for themselves. So we want our software to be flexible and have the potential in its customizability.

If you want to try this feature, here’s the description.

What this program does:
This program converts Requirements in existing Requirement Diagrams into UseCases in UML UseCase diagrams and original Requirements ID will appear:
(1) as stereotype in converted UseCase and

(2) in definition field of converted UseCase

How to run this program:
(1) Install Astah Script Plug-in
(2) Download this .zip file from the URL below.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.astah.net/ConvertReqToUC.zip
(3) Unzip and save this ‘ConvertReqToUC’ folder in Astah Installation folder/api/sample.
(4) Open Command Prompt and compile using ‘compile.bat’ file which is included in the .zip file
Example: C:\Program Files\astah-professional\api\sample\ConvertReqToUC>compile
(Reference: How to use Astah API Sample applications)
(5) Run it with the commend below in Command Prompt
run C:/…/…/xxx.asta (target project file)  *This target project file must be closed in Astah at this time
(6) After the process completes (it tells you so in Command Prompt), open the .asta file. A [rootPackageForReqToUC] package must be created with all the converted UseCases with in it.
(7) To show UseCases in the diagram, select the UseCases in the structure tree and drag them onto UseCase Diagram in Diagram Editor.

This is one example for how to use this Script Plug-in. We have many more samples available on our website. With this Script Plug-in and API, you can add customized features to your Astah!

Cheers,
SJ

IMPACG MAPPING by Gojko Adzic

Have you heard of “Impact Mapping”?

Impact Mapping

Impact Mapping is a strategic and collaborative planning technique for software products and projects designed by Mr. Gojko Adzic.

Impact Mapping Community

Many software products and projects result in fading without making any impacts despite of tremendous amount of time and money they spent. And there are common reasons to lead to the result such as wrong assumptions, lack of focus, poor communication of objectives, lack of understanding and misalignment with overall goals…etc. And the Impact Mapping overcomes all of those issues naturally by practicing and makes it a better way to deliver the software products. Also it is easy to adopt Impact Mapping as it nicely fits into current trends in software product management and release planning including goal-oriented requirements engineering, frequent iterative delivery, agile and lean software methods, lean startup product development cycles and design thinking.

Read and Learn!

Read his book ‘Impact Mapping’ and visit the impact mapping community here.

Japanese Translation

Kenji Hiranabe and I were very lucky and honored to get a chance to translate this book into Japanese to introduce this Impact Mapping to Japanese audiences and Kenji gave a presentation at Developers summit in Feb, 2014. And we made a short demo video of Impact Mapping so check it out. :)

Impact Mapping Japanese translation version was sold out at the book stand in the venue of Developers Summit 2014

Impact Mapping Demo!

Try!
To make it easier to start impact mapping, we’ve created a Template you can use in Astah Professional’s mind map. (Download template from here and open it in Astah Professional.)

Sample Map!

This is a sample Impact Map that is used in our demo video and created it a little bit further.

Cheers,
SJ

Kenji and I made a 4 minute demo video to show how to create an Impact Mapping. In this video, I play a role who wants to create a game, and Kenji helps me to make an Impact Map of this project from setting the “Goal” of the project, then visualising the “Actors” who can influence the outcome, “Impacts”, that can change those actors behaviours to achieve the goal, and “deliverables”, software features and organisational activities. Take a look! (English caption is added and also transcript is available on the page here)

[Transcript]

I am Kenji Hiranabe. Today I am going to talk about “Impact Mapping” and demonstrated by Astah.
Suppose you have an idea and you are making a service or product by developing a piece of software. If you are a developer, you often tend to focus on features of the software. but in order for your idea to succeed, you have to step back and make sure that you think not about the features but about the “impacts” of the software that affects people’s behavior.

“Impact Mapping” is a way of visualising connections among “Business goal” and relevant people called “Actors” the impacts to their behaviors. and the ‘features’ of the product called “deliverables”. Impact Mapping helps you concentrate your effort to the shortest path to success. by creating maximum impact by minimum software. Ok, let’s see the demo!

Kenji (K): I’m here to interview with Satomi about her new product. Hi Satomi!
Satomi (S): Hi Kenji
K: So I heard that you are making a new product.
S: Yes, that’s correct.
K: What kind of a product is it?
S: It is a role playing game.
K: Let’s try “Impact Mapping” for that. First of all, what’s the business goal this time?
S: To get 1 million players.
K: Then I will put “1 million players” at the center of the map. What kind of people are involved to the achievement to the goal?
S:  First, they will be “Players”.
K: Obviously.
S: And second, there will be “Internals” like us, “developers” of the product and “marketing team”.
K: So Actors will be “Players” and “Internals” divided into “Dev. team” and “Marketing team”.

K: Then let’s focus on “Players” first. What kind of impacts do you want them to make to achieve the goal?
S: We want them to invite their friends to play the game that increases the players.
K: Good idea. What others?
S: We want them to recommend that the game is cool and good.
K: So impacts would be “Invite friends” and “Recommendation”.

K: So about “Invite Friends”, what kind of features or I would say “Deliverables’ you can think of to make that impact?
S: Nice simple feature would be “Auto-invite”
K: I see that’s simple. What others?
S: We want “incentives” for the players to invite their friends incentives like… kudos or stars or some kind of recognitions.
K: They get kudos when they invite friends.
S: Yes, more friends they invite, they get more recognitions.
K: What about “Recommendation”?
S: Recommendation. Nice feature would be posting the screenshots of the game when they clear the stage.
K: Awesome photos. To the SNS or… ?
S: Yes,  on SNS like Facebook, Twitter automatically, so that other people can see cool pictures that make them want to play too.
K: This will be the “Impact Map”!

————
If you are in the business side, this Impact Map will also help you communicate the business intentions to the development team.
Next time I will show you how to create user stories or UseCases from this Impact Map. Until then. See you!

If you would like to try Impact Mapping, start with Astah, we have made a template for a quick start!

Cheers,
SJ

We are getting closer to the fun holiday season!

We will be closing our office during the period below due to the New years holidays.

December 27th (Sat), 2014 – January 4th (Sun), 2015 *Japanese Standard Time

• During this period, we are unable to:
  – process orders come in from the resellers
  – process orders for Astah Faculty Site License and Individual Academic License through our online store (Purchase and deliver the other type of licenses through online store would be available)
  – respond to the emails (Our staff on remote site will be monitoring them so contact you if recognized as urgent)
  – answer to the questions posted on Astah Q&A form

We’ll resume our normal business on January 8th (Mon), 2015 at 9:00 and respond to all of the orders and emails that we received during the time above.

If you are planning to purchase/renew your Faculty Site License, please do so before December 26th!

Cheers,
SJ

Michael Jesse Chonoles who is an author of “UML 2 for Dummies” talks about how UML was born and tells us tips for software modeling. He says, “You don’t have to model everything”, then what should we model? Check out this 5 minute video and learn.

Transcript:

Kenji (KH): Hi Michael.

Michael (MC): Hi how you doing?

KH: I’m great, how are you Michael?

MC: I’m doing fine, we’re here at the OMG conference in Austin, Texas.

KH: I would like to interview you, because you’re one of the gurus of UML.

MC: Thank you.

How did you involved in the UML movement?

KH: It was a long time ago, but how were you involved in the UML Movement?

MC: It’s a long story, I’ve been involved from the very beginning in fact I was the person who seconded the motion to approve UML 1.1, which is really the first UML. But what started it was, I worked for General Electric at the time and General Electric was using this modeling technique called Object Modeling technique (OMT), sometimes called the Rumbau technique.
I had used it and we started an organization within General Electric to teach OMT to the rest of the world. So I went to banks and other companies besides General Electric to teach it. Then what happened was OMT and the Booch method…

KH: Oh, I know the Booch Method!

MC: Yeah, it’s a great method I like it too!

KH: Clouds!

MC: Yes, clouds exactly right, and then the Jacobson Method which is something Objectory and that’s what the Use Case is, these three guys were all hired away by Rational Software Corporation, and they started to work together to unify – to bring their methods into compliance with each other.
So as soon as they started to talk about that, I who was the leader of OMT inside of General Electric at the time said we need to have standardization, and Jacobson went to OMG and said ‘can we make a proposal to standardize a unified method?’ and OMG eventually said ‘well the unified method is too aggressive how about a unified notation’.

KH: Ahhh.

MC: So they changed their unified method to unified notation.

KH: so a unified notation does not include a method part?

MC: Not the method, when you have Use Cases that’s what they mean and this is what a box means, a class box means, but it’s not like you have to do Use Cases first. So some people and some companies will do Use Cases first, and that’s usually good, but sometimes you’ll do Classes first in different circumstances. So it was very hard to come up with a Unified Method, but they were able to come up with a Unified Notation.
And they didn’t just take those three inputs, they went to all the Object based modeling methods and at that time, I counted them and had a website where all of them were, there were over 50 different notations out there to do Object Oriented Software Modeling.
So they took the best of all of them, and there was a big committee founded inside of OMG at the time to work on putting them together, they way this goes together, this doesn’t go together, and then we eventually came out and the first UML that was approved was 1.1.
So I was able to be a member of the revision team, in fact I think I’ve written more Issues, which are identified problems with the spec, than anyone else.

KH: Ahh that’s great!

MC: I’m good at finding little things that need to be fixed.
And, in the process, in between, I got to write a book on the OMT Method, then afterwards, after 2.1 came out I wrote the ‘Dummies’ book UML for Dummies on UML 2. And now I’m thinking about writing the next one on UML 2.5.

What do we model for? To execute or to communicate.. Then what should we model?

KH: In the presentation you gave today, you said that you shouldn’t model everything.

MC: Sometimes management tells you MODEL EVERYTHING… OK I’ll model it, you’re paying me, but if you’re trying to be agile you don’t want to model things that aren’t needed.
So model the stuff that’s new to you, model the stuff that’s more challenging – more difficult.

KH: So we don’t have to stick to ‘Model and Execute’ rather ‘Model to Communicate’ is that ok?

MC: That’s ok – that’s enough, there are times when model and execute is good but, if you’re short on money, short on time, short on resources which every project is; you might want to model stuff where you get the most bang for your buck – the most return on your investment. That’s the stuff that’s hard that’s the stuff that’s not known, that’s the stuff that’s hard. That’s it.

KH: One more… You wake up and you find you have the power to change any 2 things in the world, what would you change?

MC: Ha, ha, ha. World Peace, I think world peace is the key thing, and that can take up 2 wishes – it’s complicated enough.

KH: Thank you Michael.

MC: Thank you.

Astah has many useful plugins to offer for free such as:

Script Plugin

- DB Reverse Engineering
– C# Reverse Engineering
– C++ Reverse Engineering
- Easy Reverse Engineering of Java
– Script Plugin (Easiest way to extend Astah’s functionalities)
– Integration with Atlassian Confluence and JIRA.. and more!!

Since version 6.8, installing plug-ins has become much easier! In version 6.7 or earlier, you had to go to [Help] – [Plugin List] and then click [Install] button and then select the plugin file (.jar file).

But since version 6.8, all you do is drag & drop the plugin file(.jar file) onto Astah directly!

A confirmation dialog opens, click [Yes] to complete its installation.

[NOTE]
If you have “Easy Code Reverse Plug-in” (this reverses Java source code from repository such as Github, Bitbucket, Google Project Hosting just by drag & drop the URL or .java files directly in local workspace) already, when dropping the plug-in file onto Astah, a dialog below opens to ask you if you want to parse this .jar file. So select [No], then a confirmation dialog shown above appears to import it as a plug-in.

Take a look at Astah Plug-in list. All free!
http://astah.net/features/plugins

Check out our Free Plug-ins!

Cheers,
SJ

I appreciate all of the opportunities we had in 2014 to meet eachother, whether in person, over skype, or through email. We visited Astah users in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Austin, as well as Germany and Korea. Our communication team talked with users all over the world – Brazil, Peru, Canada, India, France through email and and live chat.

Each of those meetings and conversations was a vision to create Astah’s new year.

I wish everyone the best for this coming New Year, and as Einsein teaches us, enjoy all the miracles life has to offer!

Here’s some photos of our 2014!

Jan: Holstee / Visiting Oracle
Feb: Exhibiting Astah in Germany / Impact Mapping
Jun: Agile Roots
Sep: OMG in Austin – Video interview with an author of UML2 for dummies
Oct: Interview with Agile Evangelist and book translator at Samsung
Dec: OMG in Long Beach – Presentation Slide Videos for GSN and SysML will be coming up soon on Are you modeling channel

Cheers,
SJ

I appreciate all of the opportunities we had in 2014 to meet each other, whether in person, over skype, or through email. We visited Astah users in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Austin, as well as Germany and Korea. Our communication team talked with users all over the world – Brazil, Peru, Canada, India, France through email and and live chat.

Each of those meetings and conversations was a vision to create Astah’s new year.

I wish everyone the best for this coming New Year, and as Einsein teaches us, enjoy all the miracles life has to offer!

Here’s some photos of our 2014!

Jan: Holstee(in Tokyo) / Visiting Oracle(in San Francisco)
Feb: Exhibiting Astah in Germany / Impact Mapping(at Developers Summit, Tokyo)
Jun: Agile Roots(in Salt Lake City, Utah)
Sep: OMG in Austin – Video interview with an author of UML2 for dummies(in Austin, US)
Oct: Interview with Agile Evangelist and book translator at Samsung(in Seoul, Korea)
Dec: OMG in Long Beach – Presentation Slide Videos for GSN and SysML will be coming up soon on Are you modeling channel

Cheers,
SJ