An assessment of structured analysis and structured design

Abstract

This paper is a personal assessment of the Structured Analysis and Structured Design methods of Tom DeMarco [1] and Edward Yourdon and Larry Constantine [2]. The assessment is a reflection of my experience using Structured Analysis and Structured Design on a multi-person project during the late 1970s.Structured Analysis and Structured Design are of interest to this workshop for three reasons. First, they are well-documented instances of methods , one of the topics of the workshop. Second, they are in use today, thereby providing us with one view of the current state of practice. Finally, in their strengths and weaknesses, they may be representative of a class of current methods.