Context Mapping - hands on - DDD Europe 2026
Hands-on LabIntroductory

Context Mapping - hands on

Antwerp, Belgium

(This is a hands-on lab with limited capacity)

In strategic design we seek to understand the deeper structure of our hidden sociotechnical landscape, especially the interaction of software systems and development teams.

Context mapping is a significant technique for discovering and communicating that understanding. It can be a key technique for enabling legacy application modernization, identifying and communicating team boundaries and responsibilities, and setting your teams up for success in their projects as you integrate with other contexts both internal and external to your organization.

In this hands-on lab, you learn key techniques for context mapping to drive success in your strategic design efforts. We'll show how context mapping connects to other techniques such as Big Picture EventStorming and enables both brownfield and greenfield application development.

n.b. We'll be using the ContextFlow OSS application (https://contextflow.virtualgenius.com) to map collaboratively and describe contexts, looking for emergent patterns, challenges, and strategies in our mapping.

Prerequisites

Laptops

Paul Rayner

About Paul Rayner

Consultant, Author, CEO of Virtual Genius

Paul Rayner is a seasoned software design consultant with over 35 years of experience helping organizations tackle complex software challenges. As CEO of Virtual Genius (https://virtualgenius.com) and founder and Co-Chair of Explore DDD (https://exploreddd.com), Paul specializes in EventStorming facilitation and Domain-Driven Design, working with teams worldwide to discover better solutions through collaborative modeling and strategic design. His approach combines deep technical expertise with exceptional facilitation skills, enabling diverse teams—from business stakeholders to developers—to explore complex domains together and align on what to build next. Paul believes the best software solutions emerge from collaborative discovery, not top-down mandates. Through workshops, training, and coaching engagements, Paul has helped organizations from startups to Fortune 500 companies improve their software design practices, modernize legacy systems, and build more maintainable, business-aligned software architectures.

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