Modeling Heuristics

Two day workshop
Mathias Verraes

Modeling Heuristics

No dates are scheduled for this workshop. Let us know if you think we should organize it near you, or if you'd like to book it on premise in your organisation.


The best way to learn to navigate the complex world, is to dive head first in the chaos.

Modelling is more than information management. It’s complexity management, especially with today’s ever increasing demands on software. As always with complex problems, a diverse set of approaches is going to give us a more diverse range of possible solutions.

Mathias Verraes at Domain–Driven Design Europe 2017

We’re always modelling, unconsciously, unaware of our process. Even when we do visualise our understanding, we tend to draw the same things, the same structures, such as boxes and arrows, and because of that, we come up with the same solutions that have the same inherent biases.

Modelling is a learnable skill. We can learn to look at the problem from different angles. Heuristics are clever questions that expose the hidden complexity; the little tricks to validate a model before we build it; the rules of thumb that lead us to iteratively refine our solutions.

In this workshop, we’ll work on a real domain. I'll briefly introduce Event Storming, a hands-on modelling technique. We’ll use it to visualise our domain, and then use heuristics to gradually improve it. We’ll look at the heuristics that have proven helpful in my work to model domains with clients in many different industries.

But mostly, you’ll be modelling in teams, and monitoring your own and your team's approaches. You’ll discover heuristics for yourself.

Target audience:

  • Experienced developers, architects, analysts, product owners, and other stakeholders involved in software.

Goals:

  • Gain insight in the benefits of diverse modelling methodologies and styles.
  • Learn about existing techniques and approaches to explore, analyse, model, and visualise a domain.
  • Discover different heuristics to help with modelling.

Prerequisites:

  • Prior experience with Domain-Driven Design or modelling is useful but not essential.
  • The workshop does not depend on knowledge of programming.
  • No laptops are required.

Teaching style:

  • Self-discovery; chaotic; “training from the back of the room”
Mathias Verraes

About Mathias Verraes

Mathias Verraes is the founder of Aardling, a software modelling & design consultancy, with a penchant for complex environments. Mathias’ focus is on design strategy and messaging-centric domain modelling. He has worked with clients in Finance, Government, Supply Chain, Mobility, Energy, E-Commerce, and more. He blogs about software design at verraes.net. Occasionally, he teaches public courses on Domain-Driven Design & messaging. Mathias is also the founder of the DDD Europe conference. Mathias has a Masters in Music from the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, and is an autodidact on software. When he’s at home in Kortrijk, Belgium, he helps his two sons build crazy Lego contraptions.

All workshops by Mathias Verraes
@mathiasverraes

No dates are scheduled for this workshop. Let us know if you think we should organize it near you, or if you'd like to book it on premise in your organisation.


Also check out