2 day workshop
Collaborative Software Design: How to facilitate domain modelling decisions
Struggling to kick off collaborative modeling and bridge the gap between business and IT? Maybe you’ve tried getting stakeholders together to collaboratively design software, but it just didn’t hit the mark. Or you’re looking for ways to make sure these sessions actually lead to design decisions that everyone’s on board with. It’s time to dive into collaborative software design—build your skills to facilitate collaborative modeling sessions effectively and help your teams own the process of designing software.

Effective software requires strong collaboration with stakeholders and within teams. However, misunderstandings and conflicts can affect design decisions. Collaboration is a skill that must be learned and practiced. Visual collaboration tools can help clarify assumptions and improve teamwork, but tools alone are not enough—a facilitator is essential. Techniques and practices can guide effective collaboration for project leaders, business stakeholders, and technical contributors.
In this training, you will learn how to make sustainable design decisions and improve stakeholder collaboration through facilitating collaborative modeling. You’ll gain insights into how social dynamics like ranking theory, cognitive biases, conflicts, and resistance behavior affects design decisions.
Our focus is on teaching you to make sustainable design decisions that includes all the wisdom that a group holds supported by the entire group. We believe anyone involved in software creation can learn to facilitate collaborative sessions. Even if you see yourself more as a participant rather than a facilitator, you’ll discover how collaborative modeling enhances communication.
What You Will Learn
The need for collaborative design
Why it is important for a software team to collaboratively design with their stakeholders, and what happens when they don’t.
The ingredients of collaborative modelling
Gain an introduction to collaborative modelling as a powerful visualisation technique for analysing complex decisions and fostering shared understanding.
Facilitating collaborative modelling
What do we mean by facilitation, what skills and techniques do facilitators need, and why is observing behavioural patterns so important?
The influence of ranking
How someone’s explicit and implicit rank affect the outcome of decision-making, and how to observe that ranking within a group.
The effect and opportunities of cognitive bias
Understand how mental shortcuts, or cognitive biases, affect decision-making and judgement, and learn how to design nudges to overcome them.
Resistance and conflict resolution
Learn how to resolve conflicts and remove resistant behaviour that impedes collective decision-making.
Making sustainable design decisions
Discover how the best software designs incorporate all the wisdom available to a group and select the most effective solution together.
Communicating and documenting decisions
Explore the various ways to follow up and document the outcomes of collaborative modelling sessions.
Before the workshop
- Will I be learning about collaborative modeling tools like EventStorming, Domain Storytelling, Wardley Mapping, Business model canvas, Example mapping?
Not directly. However we will use some of the tools based on your experience during the training. So having experience and knowledge of doing collaborative modeling is needed to make the most out of the training. - Will I receive materials to read/watch/study prior to the workshop?
We will provide optional video materials, and you are always welcome to read the book which you will get a discount code for when you take the training!
Audience
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Are you a senior engineer, tech lead, or staff-level engineer skilled in collaborative modeling and get confidence in facilitating these sessions with stakeholders and teams?
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Are you an architect seeking to move beyond being a blocker for architectural decisions, enabling teams to lead their own collaborative modeling sessions with stakeholders?
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Or are you a Product Owner, engineering manager, user researcher/designer who believes software engineers should play a vital role in requirements engineering and product design—and you want to know how to make that happen?