In software design, we frequently overlook a vital step: collaboratively visualising the understanding of needs and design decisions alongside stakeholders and teams. Skipping this collaborative visualisation fosters misunderstandings and expectation mismatches. This confusion often steers us toward solutions that miss the mark, causing a rift between stakeholders and the development team. Moreover, this absence of a mutual understanding weakens our software architecture's resilience. Developers, without a thorough understanding of the domain, find it challenging to design systems resilient and adaptable enough to navigate the complex future of uncertainties. The principle is clear: without visualisation, our discussions and design decisions might as well not exist—they remain obscure. This highlights the importance of collaborative modelling in designing architectures that are not only resilient but also prepared for future challenges.

This presentation aims to navigate you through the strategic use of collaborative modelling to build a common understanding crucial for developing architectures ready for the challenges ahead. We'll take you through various practical design challenges encountered while consulting organisations. You'll learn about our choices of collaborative modelling tools, the rationale behind these choices, and a peek into our heuristic toolkit. This toolkit, which you'll be equipped with by the end of our session, will empower you to start integrating collaborative modelling into your company's practices. We'll share insights into making these practices stick and times they didn't—and the lessons learned. This talk is designed to jumpstart your journey in collaborative modelling within your team or organisation, not just to clarify design decisions but to ensure comprehensive alignment and understanding of these choices among stakeholders and developers alike.