Tobias Brennecke
💜 Love. 🗨️ Language. 🫴 Leadership.
💜 Love. 🗨️ Language. 🫴 Leadership.
Dortmund, Germany
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Tobias Brennecke is an independent Trainer, Workshop Facilitator, and Clean Language Coach dedicated to the human side of IT. After 15 years in software architecture, DevOps, and Domain-Driven Design, he is convinced: IT projects don't fail because of technology, but due to misaligned communication.
With his "Love. Language. Leadership." framework, Tobias bridges the gap between Business and IT. The goal: To create a "Secure Base" using his expertise in attachment theory and Clean Language. He helps teams replace contempt with curiosity, enabling a leadership style characterized by exquisite listening and inquiry. This creates a safe space for self-efficacy and innovation, preventing burnout and increasing retention. It empowers people with the tools they need to thrive personally and as a whole organization.
🏳️🌈 Love. Language. Leadership. 🎤 Speaker & Facilitator 🧠 Clean Language Coach
Tobias Brennecke ist unabhängiger Trainer, Workshop-Facilitator und Clean Language Coach für die menschliche Seite der IT. Nach 15 Jahren in Softwarearchitektur, DevOps und Domain-Driven Design ist er überzeugt: IT-Projekte scheitern nicht an der Technik, sondern an misslungener Kommunikation.
Mit seinem Framework "Love. Language. Leadership." schließt Tobias die Lücke zwischen Business und IT. Das Ziel: Durch Expertise in Bindungstheorie und Clean Language eine "Sichere Basis" (Secure Base) zu schaffen. Er hilft Teams dabei, Verachtung durch Neugier zu ersetzen und einen Führungsstil zu etablieren, der von Exquisitem Zuhören und präzisem Nachfragen geprägt ist. Dies schafft einen geschützten Raum für Selbstwirksamkeit und Innovation, beugt Burnout vor und steigert die Mitarbeiterbindung. Es gibt Menschen die Werkzeuge an die Hand, um persönlich und als gesamte Organisation aufzublühen.
🏳️🌈 Love. Language. Leadership. 🎤 Speaker & Facilitator 🧠 Clean Language Coach
Area of Expertise
Topics
Intrinsic Domain Discovery: Restoring the Soul of Domain-Driven Design
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.
Become a Clean Language Ninja
Words can be easily misinterpreted in IT projects due to different experiences and perspectives. Imagine the following situation:
Developer to Manager: "I'm almost done" (meaning the tests are still missing)
Manager to Developer: "Great you are done so fast! So lets ship it." (I paid for it and it is ready to be deployed)
These situations happen all the time and can even set your project 'on fire', eventually leading to more stress and even burnout. It almost seems that there is this invisible wall of assumptions that prevents team members from communicating effectively. If there only was a method to break down this wall.
Enter the path of the Clean Language Ninja. Clean Language as an interviewing technique offers this method for revealing the deeper meaning behind words and metaphors using attentive listening, the Clean Mindset, and a framework of specific non-leading questions.
Your guide Tobias Brennecke, who is a certified Clean Language coach, facilitator, conference speaker and IT professional with 15 years of expertise, will navigate you on your workshop journey.
*Key Concepts*
- Constructivism: Navigating communication across mental islands of understanding.
- IT Metaphors & Misunderstandings: Decoding IT metaphors that shape project reality.
- The Wall of Assumptions: Unconscious assumptions and pre-occupations reshaping mental models.
- Exquisite listening: Listen closely with elephant ears and learn parrot-phrasing.
- Clean Mindset: Be Curious about the other person and their perspective.
- Application in IT Context: Establishing robust Ubiquitous Language using Clean Language.
- Core Clean Language Toolkit: Use Clean Language like ninja stars in your next meeting!
Experience Clean Language through a highly interactive session with practical exercises, pair work, and group discussions. This workshop is ideal for developers, testers, architects, BAs, product owners, UX designers, and technical managers seeking to improve communication clarity.
*What you will achieve*
- Develop practical strategies for more effective communication in your IT role.
- Learn key Clean Language 'Ninja Questions' to uncover the true meaning behind words.
- Reduce costly misunderstandings and friction in technical discussions.
- Accelerate shared understanding in requirements and design sessions.
- Use the Clean Language toolkit for deeper domain understanding & modeling.
Overall, this workshop provides the tools and mindset to truly learn effective communication for your daily work.
Domain-Driven Design Europe and Data Mesh Live 2026 Sessionize Event
KanDDDinsky 2025 Sessionize Event
AxonIQ Conference 2025 - Where AI meets Event Sourcing
Business Says Visitor, But Your Code Says User. Let's fix that!
Picture yourself in a requirements meeting for the very conference you're attending. The communication gap in action:
Domain Expert: "Our flow is simple: A website visitor buys a ticket to become a customer. When they arrive, we check them in and they become an attendee."
You (to yourself): 'Visitor, Customer, Attendee'... those are all just users. "That's easy enough, let me make the change real quick: public class User { ... }"
And just like that, your assumption is cemented into the codebase. Slowly an invisible wall of assumptions gets built—brick by brick. While differences seem small at first, the . This session is about tearing down that wall. After it's gone, we are left with a foundation of shared understanding that we can use to build a highway bridge over the communication gap using clarity as concrete.
Attend this session and learn how to build that bridge using our Clean Modeling Playbook. The playbook provides a holistic approach that connects how you model requirements directly to the terms reflected in your Axon Framework code. It is based on two core building blocks: First, the skill of Exquisite Listening, which combines deep curiosity with a focus on the exact words people use. Second, asking powerful Clean Language questions to clarify meaning and reveal hidden assumptions.
In this practice focused talk, we will put these building blocks into practice. We will apply them by modeling a simplified conference registration system, exploring the distinct concepts of Visitors, Customers, and Attendees. We will trace these refined requirements into a live Axon Framework application, demonstrating how the playbook helps you write code that is a true reflection of the business domain and can boost your team's coding efficiency.
Comocamp 2025
Supported organizing ComoCamp as Helping Hand while giving back to the Collaborative Modeling community.
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ComoCamp is the annual gathering of modeling practitioners and visionaries. We teach the status quo, and we explore the next innovations. Our mission is to provide a home for the global Collaborative Modelling community.
Our goal is not only to pitch specific tools, but also to discuss their use cases and relationships. We love to explore the values behind our tools. A new era of Collaborative Modeling has begun, and it feels different from what many of us associated with modeling in the past!
AxonIQ Conference 2024
Facilitating my Workshop "Become A Clean Language Ninja". Participants feedback was extremely positive.
Comocamp 2024
Supported organizing ComoCamp as Helping Hand while giving back to the Collaborative Modeling community.
Sessions:
- Clean Language in IT
- Clean Language for Collaborative Modelng
- Clean Space
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ComoCamp is the annual gathering of modeling practitioners and visionaries. We teach the status quo, and we explore the next innovations. Our mission is to provide a home for the global Collaborative Modelling community.
Our goal is not only to pitch specific tools, but also to discuss their use cases and relationships. We love to explore the values behind our tools. A new era of Collaborative Modeling has begun, and it feels different from what many of us associated with modeling in the past!
SeaCon 2023
SEACON is a free conference covering the most important current topics in software engineering. Its content reflects contemporary software development, with presentations covering topics such as the integration of innovative AI technologies, challenges in digitization projects, and, above all, key new topics in software architecture.
The conference thus offers software architects, IT project managers, and software developers practical solutions for their everyday tasks.
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Talk: Lessons Learned - The Continuous Innovation Framework in Theory and Practice (45 min)
AxonIQ Con 2022
Escaping Monolithic Hell as an IT Service Providere
Once upon a time, your monolith application achieved your goals efficiently – but as it aged, it grew larger & increasingly complex. We call this the descent into monolithic hell. But great news: there's an escape.
This discussion featuring Oliver Laug and Tobias Brennecke of KPS AG at #AxonIQCon22 explores how they, as IT service providers, build modern platform architectures using domain-driven design (#DDD), command query resource separation (#CQRS), and event-sourcing techniques. Learn lessons from multiple innovation projects for enterprise customers, including the risks & benefits of DDD, CQRS, and event-sourcing technologies.
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