Collaborative Software Design: How to facilitate design decisions

DDDEU - 08 June 2023

Designing a software system is difficult. Understanding the context in which a software system lives is more difficult. In order to understand that context, developers need to communicate with the business. But there is a lot that can go wrong while communicating with the business. For example people can misunderstand what is being said, they are scared to speak up, tensions could grow, and conflict can arise.
These social dynamics cause groups to stop sharing their knowledge, which can end up in resistance behaviour from sarcastic jokes, to stopped communication or even not showing up or leaving the session. No wonder a lot of organisations resort to a more autocratic form of decision-making, where one person, the architect, analyses and makes the decision. If we want to make sustainable design decisions for our architecture that is embraced by everyone, it is better to use visual techniques to make assumptions more explicit which will improve collaboration between developer teams and the domain experts.

In this talk we will introduce you to collaborative modelling and its social dynamic challenges. Collaborative modelling is a visualisation technique to analyse complex and conflict-laden decision-making processes with all relevant stakeholders and decision-makers to create a shared understanding. And some, maybe even most of these sessions need to be facilitated so that everyone can feel a part of the decision and can potentially give the input they have. I will explain why it requires us to have a different skills set like observing, listening, trying to stay neutral and show compassion. Because that improved collaboration will let software teams understand better the context and underlying problems the business has. That understanding enables the software teams to design and build sustainable quality software products.

Transcript

1. Collaborative software design How to facilitate domain modelling decisions Photo by Agnieszka Ziomek on Unsplash
2. Gien Verschatse @selketjah
3. What is happening at BigScreen? Photo by Karla Hernandez on Unsplash
4. Software system has turned into a Big Ball of Mud
5. Features take longer and longer, or impossible to implement
6. FRUSTRATIONS …
7. FRUSTRATIONS FOR EVERYONE
8. Software team wants to redesign the system Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
9. What they hope to achieve
10. Prevent this from happening again (by better collaboration together and with the business) Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
11. CoMo to the rescue
12. Collaborative modelling, what is it? A visualization technique to analyse complex and conflict-laden decision- making processes with all relevant stakeholders and decision-makers to create a shared understanding Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
13. Software? • Understand the problem • Design solutions for the problem
14. MANY TOOLS
15. How they thought it would go…
16. We will align a bit.
17. We will use EVENTSTORMING to understand the business needs
18. Throw in some EXAMPLE MAPPING
19. We will do decomposition
20. Don’t forget connect!
21. TADA!
23. The answer: HUMANS
24. Humans and their interaction Humans and their interpersonal relationships Humans and their sense of hierarchy and ranking Humans and their assumptions Humans and their personal feelings and opinions Humans and their personal interest …. Humans.
25. Why should you care? A lot of problems exist because people are ignoring the “socio” in sociotechnical systems
26. Collaborative modelling is a sociotechnical happening
27. Social challenges during collaborative modelling • RANKING • CONFLICT • RESISTANCE • COGNITIVE BIAS • POLARITIES
28. RANKING
30. CONFLICT
31. RESISTANCE
32. THE RESISTANCE LINE
33. POLARITY Photo by Alex Padurariu on Unsplash
34. Redesigning a system is a sociotechnical happening
35. Technical choices have social consequences and vice versa
36. Choosing a certain technology will increase a skill gap (that needs to be fixed) Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
37. TDD Photo by CDC on Unsplash
38. Defining bounded contexts will change the teams
39. Strategic classification • Core • Supporting • Generic Photo by Vale Zmeykov on Unsplash
40. Collaborative modelling puts people in a room... • Who's taking the lead? • Who talks first? Who talks a lot? Who isn't talking? • Which subgroups emerge during the sessions? • Are there a lot of discussions going on? • Are people understanding each other? • Who is moving stickies around? • How much detail is required in this session? • How is the group handling decision making?
41. A FACILITATOR! WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
42. Importance of a facilitator MAKING THINGS EASIER FOR THE GROUP
43. Facilitator is a role, not a job title A FACILITATOR HAS ROLES TOO
45. Facilitator as observer USING YOUR FLASHLIGHT
46. SKILLS
47. COMPASSION
48. Neutrality is a verb
49. Collaborative modelling works Don’t get us wrong
50. Aim for sustainable design decisions
51. SUSTAINABILITY Consistency and clarity on your design decisions Photo by Victor on Unsplash
52. CONSISTENCY
54. INFORMATION Collaborative modelling to understand the business processes, the rules and policies, the user journey, workflows…
55. Designing alternatives
56. PREFERENCE VALUE-BASED HEURISTICS ARE HELPFUL HERE Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash
57. Analysing
58. DECISION <> OUTCOME Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash
59. UNCERTAINTY Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
60. RESULTING Quality of decision is being confused with the quality of the outcome
61. FEEDBACK LOOPS
62. Consider the real sociotechnical impact Socio is not just about team organization and autonomy
63. Who can decide what? • What decisions can the software team make? • What decisions can the business make? • What decisions will happen by the architect?
64. How are we deciding?
65. Over time, you will find yourself making decisions in a similar way.
66. Facilitator helps with clarity and consistency
67. This is when your decisions become sustainable.
68. SUMMARY • Collaborative modelling? • Social challenges during collaborative modelling • The role of the facilitator • Skills a facilitator has • Sustainable decision making Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
69. GOODIEBAG