Intrinsic Domain Discovery: Restoring the Soul of Domain-Driven Design

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

IT projects do not fail due to technology, but because of failed communication in your workshops. As facilitators and architects, we often try to bridge this gap by acting as the hero in the room. However, this "facilitator’s fantasy" actually pollutes the domain model with our own ego and experiential scars. We have traded the difficult work of deep semantic discovery for the tactical comfort of stickies with Aggregates, Entities and Domain Events. It is time to return DDD to its roots in the Ubiquitous Language.

This 120-minute hands-on lab is a wake-up call to take yourself out of the equation, step back, and finally learn how to listen with a lasersharp focus on the other person and their inner world only.

We provide the guide and the tools to help you stop being the villain of your own modeling sessions. We introduce Intrinsic Domain Discovery (IDD), a methodology rooted in the Clean Language work of David Grove, James Lawley and Penny Tompkins. IDD offers a philosophy of non-interference and a framework for non-contaminating inquiry that protects the expert's self-organizing process. In this laboratory, you will experience how semantic contamination acts as a visceral intrusion that halts the expert's progress. You will discover that metaphors are not static labels; they are generative structures that evolve to reveal emergent knowledge. By following the "syntax of preservation," you will guide experts through their own internal landscapes to uncover the Ubiquitous Language. The result is a living symbolic architecture that teams navigate with zero friction, where the code is a direct, unpolluted reflection of the theory of knowledge of the expert’s interior.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Exquisite Listening Practice: Execute the physical discipline of shutting off the "inner commentator" to remain an inert observer.

• Non-Contaminating Inquiry: Master the core Clean Language questions (Grove, Lawley, Walker) to elicit domain complexity without introducing extrinsic assumptions.

• Somatic Awareness of Contamination: Identify the physical signals of semantic intrusion and learn to stop yourself before you pollute the model.

• Metaphorical Evolution: Facilitate the generative process where metaphors unfold to reveal new insights and connections within the domain logic.

• Mapping into the Ubiquitous Language: Trace the path from the expert’s autogenic metaphor to the code, ensuring the architecture is a high-fidelity reflection of the mental model.

• Measuring Semantic Drift: Utilize a novel density metrics approach to identify misalignment between code and domain metaphors for focused refactoring activities.

Don’t let your next modeling session become another exercise in semantic contamination. Step into this hands-on lab to trade the hero's cape for the surgical focus of an inert observer. It is time to stop polluting the domain and start PRESERVING it. Augment your existing facilitation methods like Event Storming with Intrinsic Domain Discovery for effective and high-precision outcomes. Join us to transform your practice, master the syntax of preservation, and finally build software that truly reflects the theory of knowledge of the expert’s interior.

Prerequisites

Participants need to bring their two most important weapons: A pen and paper.

Please be in front of the room 10 minutes before the offical start time. No entry after the session has begun.