The purpose of this task is to take a business use-case that is defined at a high-level to show the intent and purpose of the business or business system -- but which is too abstract to realize directly -- and refine it into a set of use cases for the business system that can be realized by a business process (in Task: Business Use-Case Analysis).

Previous work (in Task: Find Business Actors and Use Cases) has identified an initial set of business actors and business use-cases; in this task, this set is examined to determine if it is necessary to refine or partition the set of business use-cases to a level which makes their specification focused, their coverage adequate (in support of Artifact: Business Goals, for example), and their realization feasible. This situation may arise when the initial set covers broad functions identified at the business boundary under consideration, when for example, the business use-case model is initially produced for an executive-level audience interested primarily in the high-level intent and purpose of the business.

If this examination finds it necessary, the refinement of the business use-case model is then performed using one or more of the following techniques (note that in this process, the set of business actors may also be refined):

• the high-level business use-case may have several business actors with interaction and information requirements that are partitionable
• there are sequences of interactions which have value individually to a business actor -- these can be discoverable by examination of the black-box specification of the business use case. Examination (and refinement) of the results of the interactions may show that there are intermediate results that have value to the business actor. Long-running processes should also be examined for obvious checkpoints.
• the business actor(s) for the high-level business use-case may be specialized
• lower-level intentions or goals (for the actors) that are usefully separated can be discerned, and business use-cases identified for these
• consideration of Business Goals may suggest supporting business use-cases that were not initially evident. For example, a taxi service may operate a fleet of premium quality cabs (newer, cleaner and more luxurious models). In times of high demand, one of their business goals is to maintain on-time service to their customers even if no quality cabs are available, which may mean dispatching a regular cab from another company.
• existing business-process documentation review, and further discussions with business subject-matter experts, can suggest further refinement