In large organisations; I beleive the use of UML benefits both management/user and the developers themselves.
Using the Rose UML IDE as an example, coupled with the Rational Soda product ( there are other tools but this is one I have used ) for document generation, the UML Model can be the source of documentation for management, developers working on interlinked components, new developers, etc. All this is provided without the developers having to maintain multiple documenation sets ( i.e. design documents, source code ) because they can all be linked with the IDE. Also developers can use it to convey their library structure, interfaces they expose, class hierachies, etc consistently with other developers.
Additionally if full round-trip enginerring is used then the documentation to stay up-to-date even through code revisions.
Slashdot Mirror
In large organisations; I beleive the use of UML benefits both management/user and the developers themselves.
Using the Rose UML IDE as an example, coupled with the Rational Soda product ( there are other tools but this is one I have used ) for document generation, the UML Model can be the source of documentation for management, developers working on interlinked components, new developers, etc. All this is provided without the developers having to maintain multiple documenation sets ( i.e. design documents, source code ) because they can all be linked with the IDE. Also developers can use it to convey their library structure, interfaces they expose, class hierachies, etc consistently with other developers. Additionally if full round-trip enginerring is used then the documentation to stay up-to-date even through code revisions.